


The Long Way Home

by JoeLawson



Category: Jericho (US 2006)
Genre: Character of Color, Episode Related, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:34:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeLawson/pseuds/JoeLawson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrenaline and still fragile trust, a male-bonding type of thing, that's how it started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I've been trying something a little different this time. There's a great deal of canon here, retold with a slashy slant, so people who've seen _Casus Belli_ and _One If By Land_ will experience some serious _déjà vu_, hopefully in a good way. I'm using a lot of dialogue quotes taken verbatim from the show throughout the parts of the story that follow canon. I didn't mark them specifically, because personally, I find that distracting when I read a story; doesn't mean I'm trying to appropriate the material (also see the _disclaimer_ section of the archive). Basically, this is an attempt to weave a slash plot into the episodes without changing them too much. The story does slide a bit into AU territory at the end there, but not enough so I'd label the entire fic an AU. 's more like... artistic license. *g*
> 
> A brief note about another piece of artistic license: I noticed Jake has a tattoo on his left forearm, but since I couldn't make out the words and I don't have the equipment to zoom closer, I made something up. "Numquam Retro" means "Never Back" and is the motto of the _Jagdkommando_, the Austrian Special Forces, who're badass and occasionally operate in the areas where Jake went when he worked for Ravenwood.

# The Long Way Home

 

**Prologue:   
The Walls Came Tumbling Down**

When his daughter asked him later (much later) how it had started, this thing with Jake, Robert Hawkins frowned, reluctantly put down the gun he'd been cleaning, and thought back, because Allison did deserve an answer. Must've been in New Bern, he finally muttered, uncomfortable as hell with the topic and wishing she'd approached Darcy instead. Yes, New Bern, just before the shit really hit the fan. Adrenaline and still fragile trust, a male-bonding type of thing, that's how it started. That's what he told her.

Like so many things she knew about him, it wasn't quite a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

The truth was complicated. It was a flare of admiration for a bleeding, semi-conscious kid who killed a fledgling riot by delivering a busload of only slightly traumatized children. It was a mix of surprise and intrigue when it turned out the kid – supposed to be a screw-up and more than a bit of a black sheep – could identify, recover, and dissemble a Black Box. It was being unsettled when caught with a portable satellite dish by same kid and knowing Jake might just have the brains to figure out there was something fishy going on; it was dancing the "who are you" rumba and liking what he saw even if it made his life more difficult.

Robert Hawkins hadn't expected to meet anybody interesting in Jericho, Kansas. Nobody new, anyway. He hadn't expected a lot of things, and maybe that was part of the reason why this particular truth started so much earlier than with New Bern. Small town life in Jericho blindsided him with its awe-inspiring zigzagging between country bumpkin confusion and level-headed survivalism. He certainly had not anticipated how much the people would get to him; they'd undermined his walls, weakened his shields until Jake managed to slip through.

Hawkins had spent four years undercover among terrorists and, frankly, his life hadn't fit any definition of "ordinary" long before that; he was out of practice when it came to living in a relatively sane, non-military community. He had trouble adjusting his expectations, his mannerisms, his speech patterns... his fucking _facial expressions_. "Harmless" wasn't a look that came naturally to a man like him, and the strain tended to turn his smile into a defensive snarl whenever things didn't go according to plan. His family felt like strangers, refusing to fit into the neat little framework of real and idealized memories he'd constructed around them. His purpose was screwed to hell with the bombings, leaving him stranded at a rally point with no-one left to rally, the sole guardian of the most hazardous piece of evidence in history.

The people of Jericho were supposed to be the usual cardboard cutouts, an assembly of hicks too scared and confused to be anything but sheep. Only Mayor Green, even when sick as a dog, was anything but a hysterical civilian who needed a guiding hand. Hawkins made damn sure he didn't spend too much time in the fucker's vicinity, because Green seemed to have an inbuilt bullshit detector. Deputy Jimmy Taylor looked like a sweet fool, but kept surprising Hawkins with scarily accurate insights and intuitive leaps that would've done any big city detective proud. He could be played, but every time Hawkins pulled Jimmy's strings, he felt a bit like someone juggling with a napping skunk. Gray Anderson was an arrogant, annoying politician as well as a man who could rein in his self-serving impulses and defer to his rival in order to get things done. Perfectly selfish and easily manipulated one moment, hair-raisingly altruistic and incorruptible the next. It was enough to make any professional want to tear out his hair.

And then there was Jake. Jericho's reformed bad boy. The wayward son who'd left five years ago a hostile punk and returned a man of mystery. MacGyver had nothing on the guy. Jake Green could perform a field tracheotomy with a pocket knife, a few drinking straws, and duct tape. He knew how to use a pool filter system as an impromptu fire hydrant, siphon off gas without the right equipment, and rig bombs; he could also fly planes, ride horses, and happened to be every-fucking-where at once. Twenty-four hours after his family had had to all but carry him into the waiting ambulance that first night, the man had been limping around town like a banged-up little junkyard dog. He'd pitched right in and did what it took to keep Jericho safe and running as smoothly as possible, delivering knowhow or kicks as needed.

You couldn't help but admire him for it, for the strength and sheer bullheadedness it must've taken to shape himself into the man he was and continued to be even in the face of all that had gone down. You couldn't help wanting to get to know him a bit better, dig a bit deeper, just to make sure all that strength and bullheadedness wasn't going to turn against you one day. Didn't help that Jake was so goddamn close-mouthed about his past. Hawkins didn't like secrets – other people's secrets, that was – and what little he managed to find out about Johnston Jacob Green only fueled his growing fascination with the man. Everybody with a flagged passport and a travel history that rivaled Hawkins' own was bound to be interesting. Not necessarily the good kind of interesting, but danger had never been much of a deterrent for Robert Hawkins.

Maybe it had started with watching Jake square off against Mitch Cafferty, who taunted and provoked and couldn't take his eyes off of Jake. Hawkins had gotten involved not because he thought the younger man couldn't handle a punk like Cafferty but rather because he didn't like the idea of that grimy lowlife putting more pressure on those already straining shoulders. He'd already learned that a cornered Jake was a dangerous Jake. Jake noticed too much when he was that wired. Hawkins preferred the guy distracted just a bit, not dead focused.

It had definitely been the first time Hawkins had noticed Jake as a sexual being - simply because Mitch Cafferty so obviously did. It was different with Emily Sullivan and Heather Lisinski; the former, gorgeous as she might be, was Jake's ex-girlfriend... "ex" being the operative word. The latter was a sweet Kansas schoolteacher with a crush, too much of an innocent to reel in a guy like Jake Green. Also, women being drawn to a man didn't make that man ping Hawkins' radar. It was desire in _men's_ gazes that changed the playing field, because it automatically made Hawkins reevaluate his own perceptions.

It didn't mean he'd joined the Jake Green fan club, but it did make him more aware of the man's physical attributes in a way that wasn't strictly threat-assessing. And yes, Hawkins was just bisexual enough that he could admit Jake was attractive. Pretty eyes, pretty mouth, fine features hidden under all that scruff and the perpetual strain of pushing himself beyond his limits. A body that could definitely give a man ideas, if he was so inclined and wasn't scared off by the bristly temper housed within.

Wasn't only Mitch Cafferty who was looking at Jake like that either, though the good folks of Jericho – Jake and Emily in particular - seemed to prefer not to examine Jonah Prowse's motivations too closely. That was probably a wise decision, considering the bastard was old enough to be Jake's father and struck Hawkins as the obsessive type. Still, Jonah's intervention at the Tacoma Bridge had definitely saved their collective bacons, and the terror in the aging outlaw's eyes when he'd seen Jake about to crucify himself for the town had been all too easy to discern for a keen observer like Hawkins. Emotion that raw was hard to fake and dangerous to show, even for just a moment. It made you wonder what it was about Jake Green that could inspire such passion in so many people, and such loyalty.

Thinking back, Hawkins realized he hadn't been immune either. Working with Jake had been way too easy, even at the beginning when he had told himself it was merely a ploy to stay close and keep an eye on the man who had so much influence on the leading players in Jericho. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in tune enough with anybody to communicate with nothing but a look, a nod, a quirk of the lips. It came naturally with Jake, as if they'd known each other for a lifetime. Long before he'd told Jake the truth, had officially given his trust in return for Jake's, he'd jumped when Jake had called. Didn't matter whether it was a request to identify an electronic gadget or one to come help hunt a fugitive or retrieve stolen goods – Hawkins, without questioning it, had dropped everything, be it work or family, to watch Jake's back.

Somebody needed to keep an eye on Jake, he justified his atypical behavior, because Jake might be tough as nails and usually knew what he was doing, but damn if he didn't also have a death wish sometimes. Without Jake, Jericho would be sliding towards chaos and anarchy, which would endanger the bomb, Hawkins' family, and Hawkins. _Ergo_, in protecting Jake, Hawkins protected his interests. And if his stomach twisted every time the stupid son-of-a-bitch dove headfirst into danger... well, can't blame a man for wanting to keep his one reliable ally in one piece.

He'd been on top of it all – as much as that was possible in the cracked, post-apocalyptic world they lived in now – and then Sarah happened and Jake's sister-in-law, April, lost her baby and her life, prompting Jake's little brother Eric to join the hostages going to New Bern, and Jimmy (so easy to underestimate, damn his teddy bear exterior) picked up on the fake badge thing, and Hawkins had to scramble like mad to keep everything from spinning entirely out of control. Which, in the short run, led to telling Jake the facts, riding him down to the ground as he disarmed him, and realizing, perversely, that confession actually was kind of liberating. And also that he really, really liked to see Jake Green flat on his back.

In the long run, it tied his life to Jake's until they were so tangled up in each other Hawkins lost his professional distance, gave up his defenses, and found a home.

But that came later.

 

**Chapter One:   
"I Need Your Help."**

"I need your help," Jake had said, and, like an idiot, Hawkins had agreed.

Maybe he'd caved so pitifully because Jake had been so damn agitated. It wasn't something Hawkins was all that used to, seeing as Jake mainly got impatient, annoyed, pissed off, and stubborn on principle. Of course, this time, the reason for Jake's involvement was oh so very personal, what with his little brother MIA in New Bern.

It was, Hawkins mused grimly, one hundred percent Jericho luck. _Typical_. Textbook Jericho. Town needs an alternate energy source, town deals with neighboring hicksville called New Bern and its leading hick Mayor-Sheriff Phil Constantino... and didn't the title say it all? Town is stupid enough to send ten hostages including Stanley Richmond, owner of Jericho's biggest farm and incidentally also Jake's oldest friend. They _also_ send Eric Green, son of ex-mayor Johnston Green and Jake's brother. It had been _destined_ to go south. _Of course_ Eric would be the only one _not_ to come home. _Naturally_, Jake's pal from New Bern, Russell, would hint at foul play. No matter what, in Jericho, you could always count on Murphy's Law.

Hawkins had to at least _try_ to pull the breaks and get Jake to think straight before he rode into New Bern and started breaking china. Unfortunately, although he'd known Jake tended to be reckless when those under his protection were threatened, the younger man's pushiness pressed all the wrong buttons with Hawkins. They'd only recently agreed to trust one another, to not keep secrets and watch each other's backs. Was Jake trying to use Hawkins now, make him his personal attack dog in exchange for his silence?

Hawkins was paranoid enough and had been burned so often, he could almost believe it. So he stalled. Right until Jake had it with the foot-dragging exercise and made to leave, disappointment written into every line of his body. "If you say no, just say no! I'm not a child."

He wasn't. He was a man who had thrown himself into harm's way for others again and again without expecting so much as a "thank you". Jake didn't collect favors, and he wasn't subtle. If he had intended to use his knowledge about the bomb to blackmail Hawkins into helping him, he'd have done it from the start. It was this realization that made Hawkins relent. "Jake, I'm not saying no," he soothed. "I'm saying we gotta understand the situation."

Jake paused, half out of the door, but refused to look at him. His voice was soft, and hurt-sounding. "The situation is, he's been missing for three days, and I came to you." He finally raised his eyes to meet Hawkins' gaze. "For help."

Because somewhere along the way, between the showdown at the Tacoma Bridge and Hawkins repaying Jake's faith in him with the truth, they'd become friends. The kind of friends who helped each other, no questions asked.

And just like that, Robert Hawkins had folded like a cheap suit. "Okay."

He'd agreed under the condition that he was calling the shots, but when it came down to it, he'd signed up for charging blind after a man who probably simply didn't want to come home yet, into the territory of a mean old bastard who'd eyed Jake like Jake was a juicy filet steak the last time he'd been in Jericho – yes, Hawkins had noticed. He was leaving the bomb unprotected, he wasn't packing nearly enough heat for a venture like this, and Jake, no matter how competent a partner he usually was in a tight spot, was emotionally off-balance and thus unpredictable. Given the self-destructive temper Jake had exhibited a few times already, this was not a smart thing to do.

Yet here he was, right outside of New Bern in the passenger seat of Jake's 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner. Surrounded by hostile border guards and frantically trying to figure out how to get both of them out of there alive should Jake consider it necessary to shoot the leader through the car door. Jake wasn't at his most diplomatic, not that Hawkins could blame him under the circumstances. A shootout was looking more and more likely, until one of Constantino's deputies moved closer and recognized Jake.

They were escorted into town, where the reason for the aggressive behavior of the guards became a lot clearer. New Bern looked like it had just barely survived a war. It wasn't so much the buildings, which were rundown but for the most part undamaged, but the debris that hadn't been taken away yet. Burned out cars, hastily erected barricades that were either in the process of being dismantled or reinforced, shell casings glinting dully in the weak sunlight. The people they saw on the streets had the starved, suspicious look of survivors, ragged around the edges like Hawkins never wanted to see the people of Jericho.

The town center had evidently seen the most of the fighting. The town hall was scarred by fire and pockmarked with bullet holes. Part of the roof was missing; if Hawkins had had to guess, he'd have said someone had tried to bring it down with a grenade launcher or a mortar. An improvised steel door barred the main entrance and the entire front was lined with sandbags. If Jake was right and it was the Ravenwood mercs who'd hit this place – and Hawkins was inclined to agree with this assessment – then the bastards had wreaked an impressive amount of destruction. It was hard to tell whether the men scurrying around were trying to repair the worst of the damage or adding to the fortifications and Hawkins was too busy keeping an eye on Phil Constantino to care.

Constantino hadn't changed much since the last time Hawkins had seen him. He was a tall man with penetrating blue eyes and a politician's smile. Hawkins couldn't help but notice his gray-specked beard was neatly trimmed and his clothes cleaner than those of almost everybody else they'd seen so far. As someone who'd done his share of verbally reconstructing reality, Hawkins knew to take anything Phil Constantino had to say with a grain of salt. The man was crookeder than a barrel of fish hooks. He talked to Jake in the slightly condescending voice of an uncle, but the way his gaze darted over Jake's body was anything but familial. For some reason, the ogling was almost as irritating as the level of subterfuge that was going on.

Jake, oblivious or pretending to be, was behaving himself exemplarily, except for one angry lunge at Deputy Perkins when he implied Eric might be dead in a ditch somewhere – and, really, Perkins had kind of deserved a punch in the face for that comment. However, from then on Jake was the poster child for self-restraint. He listened to Constantino being so very reasonable and helpful even as he let them know how much resentment was brewing in New Bern against Jericho. (All Jericho's fault, of course.) He demanded to see Heather and made polite small talk all the way to the factory. He didn't even call bullshit when Deputy Perkins produced Heather's friend Ted with his painfully wooden rendition of "everything's fine, Eric and Heather left for Jericho, you must've just missed them". On the contrary; the clearer it became that something really was rotten in the town of New Bern, the calmer and more amiable Jake got. It was fascinating to watch. Hell, Jake held his tongue when Hawkins himself couldn't quite bite down a caustic, "You're big on policy", upon being told they'd be escorted out of town.

As a matter of fact, Jake was being so civil that Hawkins – even though he _knew_ Jake was aware they'd been taken for a ride there – couldn't help but confirm it. "You buying any of that story?" he muttered as they waited for the guards to move the trucks so they could leave New Bern.

Jake kept staring at the barricade neutrally. "Nope."

Hawkins turned his face away to hide his grin, though he wasn't trying hard.

"Neither was Ted," Jake added, reaching into his pocket and handing over a crumpled piece of paper. "He slipped me this when he shook my hand."

It was an address. It also said to come alone, which Hawkins decided obviously included him, too, because there was no way in hell he was letting Jake out of his sight in hostile territory. Not with Jake's track record. "So, we done here?" he asked, checking his clip.

Jake merely smiled serenely and nodded, an almost lazy expectation of violence in his eyes.

This was more like it.

* * *

Sneaking back into town with Jake was a walk in the park. If Hawkins had had any misgivings left about partnering up with a civilian, he'd have lost them when he saw Jake move through the woods. This was a man who knew what he was doing in and out of an urban environment. Not exactly a surprise, since he knew part of Jake's history and they'd worked together before, but every single time Hawkins found himself amazed by how good it felt to have Jake at his back. Trust was a rare commodity in his world.

They ghosted through the picket line right into the trailer park without a glitch. It was Jake who spotted Perkins staking out Ted's trailer and he wasn't fussy about ambushing and disarming the deputy either. Much easier to do this kind of thing with somebody who hadn't been a law-abiding citizen all his life. Still, he'd expected more resistance when it came to making Perkins talk; Jake had his dark spots, but mostly he was a good man. Turned out he was a good man with a pretty high tolerance for ugliness, because except for a few not-so-happy looks, Mrs. Green's oldest boy didn't show much inclination to stop Hawkins from torturing poor Deputy Perkins.

Hawkins wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. He'd known Jake would do whatever it took to keep his loved ones safe, and Jake _had_ agreed to follow Hawkins' lead, but Hawkins hadn't reckoned with the grim resignation tightening the younger man's mouth when he grabbed Perkins' knees. Could be Jake had simply trusted his friend not to take it too far, but that was wishful thinking. Much more likely was that Jake had at least witnessed torture before, probably in the years he'd spent abroad, in war zone after war zone. The uncomfortable fact was, Jake might know a thing or two about hurting people, and he'd certainly been prepared to use some of that knowledge to find his brother. In this case, _Hawkins_ had been the good cop. It was sort of mind-boggling.

Almost as mind-boggling as the notion of mild-mannered Eric Green sabotaging a factory that was manufacturing wind engines and other parts that were going to be necessary for the survival of both New Bern and Jericho. The stench hanging about New Bern was getting worse and worse. Time to visit the factory again and have a closer look. Hawkins took steps to stash Ted somewhere safe, partly to keep him out of harm's way, partly because they might need him again, then he slapped Deputy Perkins in handcuffs – nice to see Jake would've protested cold-blooded murder – and stalked out of the trailer.

The cold air tasted good after breathing in the unsavory odors of Perkins' sour fear-sweat and Ted's burnt breakfast for so long. Nonetheless Hawkins felt tense, strangely troubled and vaguely ashamed when Jake called him on his behavior.

"Is that doing it your way?"

It made him angry, that Jake would question him, when it had been Jake who'd gotten them into this situation in the first place. "You asked me to come along," he reminded the other man, realizing only when he underlined his words with an angry gesture that he was still holding the goddamn knife in his hand.

Jake didn't even blink at the flash of the blade. "What were you gonna do?"

It was half demand, half accusation, and it only served to tip Hawkins from "jittery" into "pissed off". "You want the truth?" he snapped.

"Yeah." Quieter now, but still angry. Still upset, and that from a man who would've gone along with whatever Hawkins did to those knobby knees and the rest of their owner.

So Hawkins told it as it was and tried to make it a statement, maybe a lesson Jake could cling to should he ever be faced with such a nasty choice again. "Less than you would have," he said. "You see, I've done..." Bad things. Possibly unforgivable things. He didn't regret them, because the alternatives had been worse, but he was getting tired of sacrificing bits of his soul. "I've done enough, Jake, to know better. It's the fear of torture that gets results. Actual torture? Only works in the movies."

They stared at each other for a moment. Hawkins could tell Jake had been listening, was trying hard to conciliate what Hawkins had told him with what he'd experienced... and failed. Something flickered in his eyes, the urge to share an exceptionally unpleasant bit of his past maybe, and for the first time since he'd known Jake, Hawkins turned tail and ran. He couldn't hear this. Not now. Because he'd seen the evil that man can do, and he wasn't sure he could take knowing for certain that Jake had, too.

* * *

Considering the general paranoia in New Bern and Constantino's obsession with having stuff guarded, breaking into the factory was remarkably easy. It probably helped that the EMP had fried the electronic security system (not that something like that could've stopped Hawkins), but even so he'd expected more trouble. The workers had gone home for the day, so the place was mostly empty and the few armed guards seemed bored stiff and were bypassed with minimal effort.

Hawkins and Jake moved quietly through the deserted factory floors, looking around as they walked even though neither of them had any idea how to tell what the individual pieces of equipment were supposed to do. Hawkins figured whatever it was Eric had noticed would have to be pretty obvious anyway, because Eric was about as machine-savvy as they were.

They snooped around some then Jake led the way from the great halls into the maze of dimly lit back corridors. Most of the doors were locked; they picked a number of them open at random and checked what was behind, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Machine parts. Tools. A break room with a tattered plastic couch and an empty vending machine. Enthusiasm waning, they kept searching until they encountered a white and blue sign that caught their attention immediately:

NOTICE:  
Authorized  
Personnel  
-Only-

How irresistible.

It was a sliding door, no lock, and Hawkins pulled it open while Jake covered him. The spacious room behind looked like another storage facility. A ramp led down into the darkness; Jake turned on his flashlight and took point, moving ahead while Hawkins pulled the door mostly closed and waited for his partner. He tensed when Jake called for him, an urgent whisper in the silence – the first sound either of them had made since they'd set foot into forbidden territory.

The reason for Jake's distress became clear when Hawkins joined him in front of the blackboard in the center of the room. It was a full inventory of Jericho: farms, expected crop production, livestock, the salt mine… It was all there, neatly listed in white chalk. Then Jake spun the board and both of them froze for a second, for there was a map of their hometown stuck up there, colored in red, everything neatly divided into sections labeled with New Bern names. There were checkpoints marked, acreage estimates jotted down, the main routes in and out of town highlighted. It was so bold, so absolutely confident, that it didn't seem like counting one's chickens before they were hatched. Constantino had to be really fucking sure he'd win whatever campaign he was planning, which begged the question what the hell did he know that they didn't.

Finding out what Eric had discovered suddenly became a lot more pressing.

Jake apparently shared Hawkins' alarm, because he didn't even bother to flip the board back into its original position as they hurried out of the room to continue their search of the premises.

They found what they'd been looking for in a fenced off section of one of the storage buildings. Actually, it might've taken them a lot longer if not for the sound of metalwork that seemed twice as conspicuous in the quiet. The work area was shielded from view by a canvas cover, but this was New Bern, Kansas; their idea of high security was a lot different from what Hawkins – and probably Jake, too – was used to and had learned to circumvent. With Jake at his back, Hawkins peered through an opening where the canvas had caught on the fence. His fingers tightened around the gun.

Mortar rounds, dozens of them. The fucking fuckers were manufacturing munitions in their shitty little factory... and after that informative display in Constantino's "war room", it was a sure bet the effort wasn't aimed at a possible return of Ravenwood either.

One of the workers left the enclosure, pushing a trolley loaded with mortar rounds, and Hawkins and Jake had to scramble to avoid being spotted.

"They're getting ready for war," Hawkins growled, once the immediate danger had passed. He was surprised to realize how angry the discovery made him. This was a dog-eat-dog world and he'd known it, but apparently living in Jericho had blunted his edge, because a part of him had hoped there'd be another explanation. Crazy, considering the information they had on the chaos that was ravaging the remains of the country, but Jericho, through all the hardships, had managed to hold on to an amazing level of civilization. It wasn't a place that deserved being raped and pillaged by a less fortunate neighbor.

"We need to get back to town," he decided. They needed to warn their people, they needed to prepare for battle... Hawkins did a mental count on the weapons he'd stashed away and the two hidden armories that had been set up by the Agency after Jericho had been picked as the rally point. There should be enough firepower to arm every single able-bodied citizen and easily enough ammo to stop New Bern cold.

That was when Jake lost his mind. "No," he breathed, "We need to try and stop them. Cover me." And off he went, after the gofer with his trolley, so fast Hawkins didn't have a chance to unclench his fingers from the gun and grab him by the shirt in time.

He was spotted in seven seconds flat, chased down like a hare, and cornered by Deputy Perkins and Phil Constantino before Hawkins could intercept him and drag him to safety. Jake Green, Hawkins thought, seething silently as he watched his friend being cuffed and led away, was officially a hotheaded idiot.

 

**Chapter Two:   
"Then They Caught Us."**

It was a spur of the moment kind of thing; inspiration rather than conscious planning. Jake's brain ran its argument by him in a one-second flash presentation:

  

  1. They had to get word out about Constantino's plans and preparations; that was their duty as the leaders of Jericho's security force.
  2. They had to find Eric; that was Jake's duty as Eric's older brother.
  3. Hawkins could get word to Jericho. He was easily good enough to find his way out of town to the car and make sure Constantino got a nasty surprise when he tried to invade.
  4. Hawkins didn't need Jake for that.
  5. If Eric had seen what they had and had tried to sabotage the factory, they must've caught him, else he'd have come back home. Eric was a Green, so Constantino had likely not simply shot him but tossed him in a hole to interrogate him.
  6. Chances were, if they caught Jake, they'd take him right to Eric.  




Running a plan by Hawkins that was based on so many "ifs" was a surefire way to get conked over the head and dragged back to Jericho in the trunk, so Jake didn't. He darted away and into the open before Hawkins could stop him, then nearly jumped out of his skin when Perkins came sprinting around the corner behind him with a whole pack of "deputies" following in his wake. It was convenient and daunting in equal measure.

In the face of all those heavily armed men stampeding towards him, Jake's body made an executive decision and hauled butt outta there as fast as possible. He didn't dare even glance back towards his partner as he sprinted away, darting through the storage hall with his heart in his throat. If Constantino and his men didn't kill him, Hawkins would.

Jake's flight was stopped abruptly by yet another fence. It was big meshed, but Jake pulled the brakes before blind instinct could carry him up and across. He put up his gun and raised his hands, turned, and found himself facing Phil Constantino who had the gall to look surprised at seeing him. If Constantino wanted to kill him, he'd do it now, and for a second Jake thought that he would; but in the end, Constantino didn't pull the trigger. He took away Jake's gun and stepped back again, leaving Jake shaky with leftover adrenaline.

"Take him away," he ordered, face tight with a weird mix of suppressed emotions.

No more good old uncle Phil. It was almost a relief.

* * *

They cuffed his wrists behind his back and manhandled him out of the factory and into a truck. The drive to the town center was silent, though Perkins kept glaring at Jake in the rearview mirror. Looked like he hadn't forgotten or forgiven that Jake would've let Hawkins carve him up. Jake gave him a bored stare back then settled in the backseat and closed his eyes. Sometimes it felt like he hadn't slept since the bombs had gone off. His shoulders ached, the metal of the cuffs was biting into his wrists, and the ankle he'd hurt when he'd been trapped under Stanley's truck throbbed and stung like a sonofabitch. He didn't think he'd injured it again, but it sure wasn't happy with him.

New Bern, like Jericho, wasn't big enough to need a prison. There were holding cells by the sheriff's office, and also in the basement of the town hall. That was where they took Jake; two bulky deputies escorting him, breathing down his neck. Seemed like they had a lot of criminals in New Bern lately, because the cells were all occupied. Jake was led to one of the bigger cells, uncuffed, and pushed in without much ado. He turned in a circle, studying the other occupants, and the knot in his stomach grew when he didn't spot the one prisoner he'd been looking for. Would've been too much to ask to be tossed in with his brother, but-

"Jake." The familiar voice was tired and hoarse, nothing but a whisper, but Jake had rarely heard a sweeter sound.

He leaned against the bars, focused his eyes through the gloom on the ragged figure in the opposite cell. "Eric," he sighed, so relieved to see his brother alive that his knees threatened to give out.

Eric looked like shit. He was dirty and bruised, his skin chalk-white, and his right arm dangled uselessly at his side. On the other hand, he was still breathing. Jake could work with that.

They ended up sitting on the floor in their respective cells; Jake, because his ankle seriously needed a rest and he didn't want everybody in the basement to know what he and Eric were saying, and Eric, because he'd sorta slid down along the wall when he realized his big brother had marched straight into the hornets' nest to find him and it seemed easier to just stay put once his butt hit the ground.

"When I saw that map of Jericho, I asked Heather about it," Eric reported after a while. He licked his lips. "She didn't think... New Bern could do that to us."

_No_, Jake thought, _she wouldn't_. Heather was a nice girl. Nice girls always tried to think the best of people.

Eric looked around furtively. "And then she snuck in and... she saw the mortars in their plant."

Not exactly what the average nice girl might do, but certainly something Heather would. Genteel as she could be, Heather had a level head on her shoulders and an unhealthy amount of courage. It was part of what Jake liked about her so much. It didn't explain why Eric was in jail and Heather nowhere to be found though. "Why didn't you just leave town?" Jake asked.

The look Eric gave him was the one he reserved for when he thought Jake was being a bigger moron than usual. "Because," he whispered, enunciating clearly just in case Jake had gone deaf as well as dumb, "we wanted to break the machine. Stop the factory."

Definitely what Jake would've done, but, damn it – Eric wasn't Jake. _Heather_ wasn't Jake. They were the thinkers, Jake was the doer. Jake could afford to take more risks, because he had experience with getting into trouble, had spent the past five years learning to fight in the most brutal school imaginable, and because, when push came to shove, Jake was _expendable_.

"Then they caught us," Eric concluded with a quick glance towards the guard at the far end of the corridor. He swallowed, looked down. "They brought me here."

Jake was getting a really bad feeling about this. One of them was still missing. "So where is she?" he asked, not sure if he really wanted to hear this, but he hadn't gone to all these lengths to chicken out now. "Where's Heather?"

Eric's tone gentled. "She's dead, Jake."

* * *

They came for Jake and Eric before Jake could digest the news. Perkins and his men snapped the metal cuffs around their wrists again, hard enough to make Jake's bones grind together painfully, and ushered them out of their cells. They were pushed down the hallway and up the stairs, Perkins' hand an iron band around Jake's upper arm.

As they crossed the entrance hall of the building, Jake could see the glow of torches outside, illuminating a scene like out of a Frankenstein movie. Most of the people of New Bern seemed to be gathered on the square, a writhing, faceless mob stirred up by the puppet master on top of the stairs. They could hear him clearly, for Constantino knew how to speak to a crowd even without the aid of a microphone. His voice carried on the fire-heated air like a war cry, fierce and self-righteous.

"...on the day that we made good on our end of the deal, what did they do? They tried to destroy the factory that keeps this town alive."

Oh shit.

"Here's your proof!" Constantino called, and, right on cue, Perkins shoved Jake across the threshold, pushed him out in front of the angry horde to present him like a trophy. Eric was nudged in place beside him, his posture rigid and fear rolling off him in waves. He didn't show it, stood tall beside Jake with only his tightly controlled breathing betraying his nervousness. Jake was proud of him.

Constantino only glanced at them, focused firmly on the people in front of him. He swept out one arm, pointing at the brothers. "These are the sons of Johnston Green," he bellowed. "Sent from Jericho to wreak havoc on this town. Now we know, if these people have their way–"

Jake and Eric exchanged a glance, horrified. It was one thing to discover clandestine war preparations, but this? This was stepping up the tempo, whipping New Bern into open hostility.

"–New Bern would cease to exist," Constantino continued darkly. His intensity was frightening; he sounded so sincere _Jake_ would've been halfway convinced if he hadn't been on the receiving end of the man's verbal attack.

"With your help... and sacrifice," Constantino finished, every inch the noble leader willing to shoulder the burden of protecting the helpless by marching selflessly into war against Johnston Green the Terrible, "I will make sure that never happens."

It was about then Jake felt a shiver skitter down his spine, the powerful feeling of being watched not by the mob, not by the deputies guarding him, but by someone he knew. Someone who was even better at drilling holes into Jake with a pointed stare than Jake's dad was.

Hawkins.

 

**Chapter Three:   
"Things Are Bad In New Bern."**

**Ted Lewis' Hunting Cabin, outside of New Bern**

He was going to kill Jake.

Well, no, _first_ he was going to throttle Ted, and _then_ he was going to kill Jake. Hawkins had been gone for a few hours, to recon and fetch his emergency bag from the trunk of Jake's car, and when he got back to the cabin, Ted had opened the door without checking who was there. Ted hadn't even taken a _gun_. Ted had been stupid enough to use Hawkins' name after he'd been succinctly told not to. Ted was... he was... Ted was an amateur.

Hawkins' anger deflated a little. He'd gotten spoiled working with Jake, who knew what he was doing and didn't tend to make stupid mistakes. That was, when he wasn't switching into _kamikaze mode_ in the _middle of a fucking operation_. Hawkins honestly didn't know whether he was primarily worried or pissed the hell off, but every time he remembered the helplessness he'd felt watching Jake be captured, he was leaning heavily towards option number two.

He didn't like admitting to himself how rattled he'd been by the sight of Jake up on that platform, dangled in front of that half-starved, angry crowd like a carrot on a stick. Hawkins was almost certain Constantino had had no intention of letting Jake get hurt, had merely used him to make his point, but a mob is mindless and if the bastard's control had slipped... Hawkins' skin broke out in goose bumps. He'd seen a man lynched once in a prison riot. A guard, not much older than Jake. It had taken him a long time to die, and he hadn't gone easy. Hawkins still dreamed about it sometimes; the dull thuds of fists and feet connecting with vulnerable flesh, the blood, the agonized shrieks as that kid had been beaten half to death. The way he'd twitched and gurgled and shat himself when they'd strung him up on a girder. It could've happened to Jake, and neither Constantino nor Hawkins would've been able to stop it.

Eric had been there, too, in as much danger, but for some reason Hawkins couldn't quite work up the same amount of outrage on behalf of the younger Green brother. Maybe because he didn't know Eric as well as he knew Jake, didn't care about him nearly as much. Maybe because a dark, shameful part of him blamed Eric for the mess Jake was in. The moment Hawkins had seen the two of them stumbling out of the town hall side by side, he'd realized why Jake had thrown himself to the wolves like that. Threaten his family and Jake's brain switched off. Rational or not, that dark part of Hawkins' itched with the desire to hit Eric for playing hero and forcing his brother to take such extreme measures in order to find him.

Ted jumped nervously when Hawkins pulled out his gun and set it down on the table with a thunk, but Hawkins barely noticed. He dug into his bag and fished out his cleaning kit then dissembled the weapon and started wiping down the parts. He needed to be able to think clearly if he was to come up with a feasible plan to get Jake and Eric out of Constantino's clutches, and handling weapons had a calming effect on Hawkins.

Damn it, but Jake had looked ten years younger up there, his eyes huge and dark in the firelight, rendered small by the oversized hoodie swallowing up his wiry frame and the taller men surrounding him. It was an illusion and Hawkins was aware of it. Jake was about as tall as Hawkins, a little taller actually, almost six foot of muscle and sinew. What he lacked in formal training, he made up by fighting dirty, which meant Jake could hold his own against most opponents if the odds weren't stacked against him. Didn't change the fact that sometimes Hawkins wished Jake didn't have to fight so hard all the time. Wished he hadn't added to the burden the kid was carrying even as he felt the guilty relief of having shared his own.

It didn't help any that he couldn't forget the way Constantino had looked at Jake. It was a strange kind of want, part sexual, part pure desire to dominate, a combination that set Hawkins' teeth on edge… not least because he could, to a certain degree, empathize. Jake had a knack for stirring people's passion and the results could be uncomfortably physical.

Hawkins had to get him out of there, the sooner the better. He could only hope Jake's sharp tongue would be defense enough against Constantino's hunger and Perkins' grudge until then.

 

**New Bern Town Hall, Prison Tract**

The first interrogation didn't go quite as Jake had expected. Not that he'd been entirely sure what to expect. More yelling, for sure. More threats. Quite possibly a beating, maybe worse. Questions about Jericho rather than Hawkins, because, really, Constantino couldn't seriously believe Hawkins would hang around New Bern when he could be halfway to Jericho already to warn Anderson and the Rangers about the invasion to come.

Instead of following the usual script though, the whole affair took about ten minutes total. Constantino spent most of that time circling Jake, talking to him in a dark, weird voice, asking who Jake's companion had been and where to find him. He threatened Jake and Eric, too, almost as an afterthought, but he did it so vaguely Jake let out a derisive little laugh. "Things are gonna get very bad for you – and your brother – if you don't help us, Jake," was not what Jake considered an incentive to rat out a friend, much less Hawkins.

Constantino moved on to spouting propaganda then, but it sounded off, like it was merely something to say, a reason to talk to Jake, and he backed off immediately when Jake refused to be impressed and asked about Heather in turn.

They took Jake back to the prison tract before he'd so much as gotten warmed up, not a scratch on him. Not that Jake was complaining about the lack of grandstanding and torture – because Hawkins could lecture all day long about how it was the _fear_ of torture that got people to talk, not actual torture, but that didn't make it any more true. Jake had seen men and women subjected to both the threat of violence and to brutal mutilations, and, with few exceptions, it had usually taken an impressive amount of pain and blood to drag the truth out of those prisoners. If it was the lives of friends and family at stake, people were willing to take a whole damn lot before they betrayed them.

This time, they did put him in a cell with Eric, who looked worse in the bit of daylight they got now than he had in the neon brightness the night before. He was in bad shape, and not only physically. April's death had started it and the double-whammy of losing Heather and getting the shit beaten out of him had done the rest. Eric was a decent man, the good son Jake had never managed to be, the A student, the hard worker and respected community leader. He'd never fucked up anything except his marriage, and that had been as much April's fault as his. The trouble with leading such a charmed life though, was that unlike Jake, Eric had never learned to roll with the punches, to handle failure. He'd also never been forced to endure much in the way of physical pain, and it showed.

To see his little brother like this, so beaten and out of his element, hurt. It made Jake feel helpless. He'd never been good at consoling anybody; he wasn't particularly eloquent, never had been. Grand and uplifting speeches were their father's specialty. Offering a shoulder to lean on, Eric's. And their mother, Gail, had always handled the coddling part of lending support. Jake, not exactly blessed with the powers of commiseration, had mostly made himself scarce or stood in awkward silence. He could fight for his family, had absolutely no qualms about killing or being killed for them, but reach out to his brother and make him feel better? That he didn't know how to do. The only thing he could offer was a few heartfelt but clumsy words to make it clear he wasn't going to give up on Eric, but he didn't think Eric took much solace from his promise.

* * *

When the cell door slid open much later to admit Maggie Mullen, thin and just as harshly beautiful in civvies as she'd been in her stolen fatigues, Jake could've sworn he heard Hawkins bark out one of his rare, cynically amused laughs somewhere in the back of Jake's mind. What were the chances? No, really. Just how fucking gullible did Constantino think he was?

The thing was, Jake liked Maggie. He honestly did. She was a survivor, ready to lie, scam, sneak, make deals, fight... whatever it took to stay alive, and she wasn't apologetic about it. He admired that core of honesty beneath all the subterfuge. They'd clicked from the start, recognized parts of themselves in each other, and Jake didn't doubt Maggie liked him back as much as she could in a world like theirs. Didn't mean he trusted her, but it made it harder to completely disregard everything she said.

She wasn't subtle. Actually, that was a point in her favor, because Jake had seen Maggie perform in Jericho and if this was Maggie doing a job for Constantino in order to get her ass out of jail, she was definitely not giving it her best. Maggie was first and foremost looking out for herself, so whatever she said, whatever she offered, Jake knew it had to be for her own benefit. He couldn't blame her; he had some sort of safety net, Maggie was flying solo. As far as he could tell, there was nobody out there who gave a damn whether she lived or died. So yes, he understood why she wanted him to give her some leverage so she could scramble free from this trap... he just had severe misgivings when it came to putting his and – more importantly – Eric's and Hawkins' lives in her hand.

Liking her was no excuse, but for a second or so, he was tempted by her proposal. It made a scary kind of sense. Give up Hawkins so Maggie could get out, because Hawkins could take care of himself and whatever New Bern threw at him – after all, there was no way for Constantino to guess he wasn't going up against a regular Joe but a black ops operative. Hawkins would make mincemeat out of anybody sent out to retrieve him. And if Maggie was being truthful about how bad things were out there, about not having anywhere to go, the hope that Jake would bring her back to Jericho might actually be enough to keep her from doing a runner.

The choice was taken from him when the guards came to collect Eric.

Eric's condition had not improved since they'd been used as showpieces in Constantino's war rally. Jake had made him lie down and sheer exhaustion had put the younger man to sleep. A good boy even now, and Jake had been hit by the bittersweet memory of Eric drifting off like a little angel when they'd been kids while Jake himself had tossed and turned for hours, much to their parents' frustration. He'd always been prone to insomnia; just another facet of being the family screw-up, he supposed. At least Eric had been resting peacefully for a few hours, stretched out on one of the cots with Jake checking on him periodically. Not even Maggie's arrival and her hushed negotiation with Jake had woken him from his slumber.

At first, Jake didn't realize what was going on. The door was opened, and Jake and Maggie – the only ones wide awake – moved back instinctively. However, the guard marched right past them. He grabbed Eric by his jacket, pulled him from the cot, then half dragged, half carried the disoriented man out of the cell. The door slammed shut inches from Jake's nose as he tried to follow. He watched, horrified, as his brother disappeared in a room across the corridor, ominously labeled "Interrogation Room".

God, no. No. Please, no. Jake's fingers curled around the bars as he saw one of the deputies lug a metal bedstead through the door. He knew what was coming. The buzzing hum of what sounded like a cattle prod, the clank and rattle of a body spasming uncontrollably against a framework of metal springs, the breathless cries... all of it was familiar. Jake's heartbeat accelerated as if it was him being subjected to the electric shocks.

Eric. _Eric._

He was barely aware of Maggie coming closer, skittish as a cat approaching a wounded dog. "Jake." She touched his arm just as Eric screamed again and jerked back at his violent flinch. "Jake, just gimme a chance," she whispered, an urgency to her pleading that hadn't been there before. "Please. We can end this."

Another sound of pain, another flinch. Maggie's fingers closed around Jake's arm again, pressed down against rigid muscle in a desperate attempt to draw his attention away from his brother's suffering. It took him a moment before he could answer. He had to squeeze the words past the unvoiced scream lodged in his throat first.

He couldn't trust her. He had no choice but to do it anyway. "Okay," he whispered on a stuttering gasp. "Okay."

Eric kept screaming.

 

**Jericho**

"Things are bad in New Bern," Russell told them, and the atmosphere in Johnston's - no, in _Mayor Anderson's_ office (he'd never _ever_ get used to that) - changed abruptly. "And when they find out that six of us came here and only five are coming back..."

Johnston Green had known things were heading towards FUBAR territory the moment Gail had taken him aside to tell him Dawson, one of the New Bern men wounded in the shootout at the salt mine, had died. Despite the deal the two towns had made to exchange hardware for food, the relationship between Jericho and New Bern had felt strained ever since Phil Constantino had insisted on taking ten Jericho men to New Bern to help build the windmills. He didn't call them hostages, but that's what they'd been. And now they were back, all but Eric, and the men who'd accompanied them had tried to take over the mine, according to Deputy Bill Kohler.

Johnston didn't know who'd fired the first shot. He didn't think it mattered. A man was dead, several others wounded. If Constantino had been looking for a reason to escalate things, they'd just handed him one on a silver platter.

He knew where this was going, but he wanted to hear Russell say it, so Johnston took a few quick steps towards the desk and the scruffy man leaning over it in an attempt to get it through Gray Anderson's thick skull just how dire their situation was. "What are you saying, Russell?"

Russell glanced at Gray then back at Johnston. "You got people there." He took a deep breath. "You should bring them home."

It took a second to sink in then an icy fist seemed to grab Johnston's insides and squeeze. "Eric."

Jesus. Eric was so hurt already, worn down by weeks of his mother's relentless criticism and disapproval, devastated by the tragedy of losing both April and their baby. The kid had needed a break so badly, and now he was cut off from any kind of support in a town that was apparently a lot more hostile than any of them would've ever thought. Johnston exchanged a horrified look with his successor. "Eric's still there."

Again, Russell glanced from one of them to the other before he focused on Johnston, an oddly intense look in his eyes. His tone was a lot softer than the one he'd used before. "Johnston, you need to know something."

Johnston's attention snapped back to him immediately, the fearful quality of Russell's voice raising the hair on the back of his neck.

"Eric hasn't been seen in a few days," Russell told them. He shifted a little, uncomfortable under their stares. "And yesterday, Jake went back there to try and find-" He didn't get to finish his sentence.

"You tellin' me this _now_?" Johnston bellowed, every thought of diplomacy falling by the wayside at the realization that _both_ his children were in peril. If Jake had left the day before and wasn't back yet that could only mean he'd run into trouble (big surprise there; when _didn't_ Jake run into trouble?). It meant Jake was out there alone again, like he'd been for the past five years. Only this time, Johnston had a good idea where to find him. And where Jake was, Eric wouldn't be far, because Jake would've located his brother by now and was going to stick close to him no matter what. He was persistent like that. "All right," Johnston decided. "We leave now, we can get there before dawn."

Gray startled and jerked forward, out from behind his desk, talking fast. "No. No, no, no. I'm not authorizing-"

Johnston cut him off with a glare. "Did you hear him?" He pointed at Russell to underline his point, his blood pressure rising with every second they wasted talking while his boys were out there needing him. "Constantino _wants_ a bigger fight." War. Jesus, they were talking about war. And Eric and Jake-

No. Not an option. "He's not gonna have my sons as human shields."

That seemed to get through. Gray was a decent man, but sometimes you had to shake him hard to make him get his priorities straight.

Russell squared his shoulders, looking serious, ready to go along with whatever plan Johnston had in mind. He'd made friends with Jake, Johnston remembered. Hell, Russell had grown fond of Jake so quickly he'd pulled a gun to defend Jake against the guards at Black Jack Fairgrounds despite the strict "no guns" policy. It could've gotten him killed. Not five minutes later, he'd driven a truck through the gatehouse to help them escape, which had effectively annihilated any chance he'd had at ever being able to go back to the trading post. All this for a man he'd known for maybe half an hour at that time. Yeah, he was fond of Jake alright. It was a kind of fondness Johnston preferred not to analyze too closely, because it made him a little uncomfortable, but that didn't make it any less real.

"Let's go," he told Russell.

When he went out the door, Russell was half a step behind him.

 

**Chapter Four:   
"Relax."**

**New Bern**

Jake didn't know how long Eric was tortured. It seemed like hours, though it probably wasn't, because hours of this would've killed his brother and they wanted him alive still. It didn't matter. Time did peculiar things, speeding up when Eric was given a break, slowing down to a molasses crawl when they started in on him again. Jake was trembling like a leaf, barely aware of Maggie's increasingly fretful attempts to soothe him. His focus on the closed door of the interrogation room was so complete he didn't even notice Constantino until the man was standing right in front of him, blocking his view.

"Jake." Almost gentle, almost regretful, as if he didn't like seeing Jake like this, didn't like to hear Eric's weakening cries.

It was a lie, like pretty much everything that came out of Constantino's mouth these days, so Jake ignored him, averting his gaze so he didn't have to see the fucker who was responsible for Eric's pain. His refusal to engage would've made Hawkins proud; Constantino seemed at a loss for a brief moment, not used to being denied, though he caught himself quickly. He took a step closer, wisely staying just outside of Jake's reach. "If you don't wanna talk, Jake, I can go. I just thought you might like a chance to stop this, give your brother some respite."

Slowly, grudgingly, Jake raised his gaze to meet Constantino's. He had to consciously relax his jaw so he could talk. He'd clenched it so tightly his head hurt. "What do you want?"

He expected the obvious – Hawkins' name and location, information about Jericho's defenses, a signed confession of his terroristic intentions – but once again Constantino managed to surprise him. "All I want is a few hours of your time, Jake. I want you to come with me without a fuss... There's things we have to discuss, you and I."

Jake knew it was a trap; whatever Phil Constantino wanted from him that required they "discuss" it elsewhere and needed Jake's cooperation for it had to be a doozy, but he didn't see any options. He couldn't haggle, couldn't delay his decision, not with Eric suffering for every second Jake hesitated. Maggie's fingers were digging into his arm like claws, a wordless warning. He pried them off. _Do your part_, he thought, _Just do your part and don't betray me._ He'd told her everything she'd need to get it done; the ball was in her court now.

"Nobody touches my brother while we're gone," Jake demanded, fixing Constantino with a hard stare. "You stop the torture now, get him out of that fucking room."

Another buzz. Another scream. Jake didn't flinch, _refused_ to flinch, just flexed his fists and took a step back from the bars, a wordless warning that there'd be no debating this issue. Constantino seemed to have expected these terms, for he smiled like a businessman about to close a profitable deal. "Don't go anywhere."

Very funny.

At least Constantino didn't lose any more time talking. He turned around and went right over to the interrogation room, opened the door, and disappeared inside for a few minutes. Eric's cries stopped, though Jake, straining to hear, caught a few sobbing moans underneath the murmur of voices. Not the kind of sounds produced by continued punishment but the result of an unexpected relief from pain. So far, so good.

Beside him, Maggie wrung her hands like she didn't know whether to shake him or start tearing out her hair. "What are you _doing_, Jake?" she whispered. "You- you can't- He's not gonna-"

Jake couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from the open doorway across the corridor. "It's okay. It's _fine_, Maggie. I can handle Constantino."

Maggie almost choked on a hysterical laugh, which finally made Jake look at her. "You can't just give him what he wants, Jake! Didn't you listen to what I told you? He's never gonna let you and Eric out of here!"

"If this was about Hawkins, he wouldn't be two-stepping like this." He gave her a smile, hoping it didn't turn out too cynical. "When I'm gone, you call for Perkins, and you go ahead with the plan. Nothing's changed."

A note of worry crept into Maggie's voice. "What about you?" Hard to tell whether the emotion was honest or mostly to reassure him she was on his side, but he appreciated the effort.

"I can take care of myself."

She opened her mouth as if to say something else, but Constantino chose that moment to return with two of his deputies. With a final glance at Jake, Maggie melted back into the shadows at the back of the cell. She sat down on the concrete bench and watched them lead Jake away, a hard-edged, fox-eyed scarecrow of a woman, his ace in the hole.

* * *

The cuffs weren't quite so tight this time around, and Jake was grateful for it. He didn't like taking damage to his hands; it made punching people a bitch. He'd had to knock out a guy with a cracked wrist once and had ended up having to wear a cast for three weeks longer than anticipated. Not a fun experience on a run through Iraq. At least he'd been on his own then, hadn't had to remember that hitting the wrong person might get his brother fried like a chicken at a church barbeque.

Constantino was unusually quiet on the drive through town. He kept glancing at Jake, who was huddled in the backseat as far away as possible from the bear of a deputy lounging beside him, but he didn't start up a conversation. Jake almost wished he would. It might've given him an idea about what the fuck was going on.

They passed a checkpoint at the border of New Bern and went up into the hills outside of town. For a long, uncomfortable half hour Jake wondered if maybe they'd found and somehow overpowered Hawkins, were driving out to Ted's hunting cabin so Constantino could dunk Jake's nose in his friend's blood. He wouldn't have put it past Constantino, but by the time the truck clattered over a wooden bridge and up a well groomed gravel driveway, Jake had stopped worrying about it. It was too much trouble just for a chance to gloat, and anyway, neither Ted nor anybody in his family had the means to acquire a piece of property like this. The cabin that stood at the end of the driveway was about the size of a medium-size ranch house, new wood all but shining in the cool dawn.

"Nice digs," Jake noted wryly as he pulled free from the deputy's hands. He didn't appreciate being practically lifted out of the car like a tied-up dog.

Constantino chose to ignore the sarcasm and smiled proudly. "I got it done just before winter. Cost me a small fortune, but it was worth it." He clapped Jake on the shoulder, nearly sending him sprawling to the ground in his enthusiasm. "Come on, I'll give you the tour."

They trooped up the porch steps in a line, Constantino leading the way, the burly deputy – Kearny? Kierry? – bringing up the rear. Jake in the middle, half a head smaller than either of them, bound and stupid with fatigue, felt somewhat outgunned. He was pretty certain that was the point of the exercise.

The cabin's living room was dominated by an old-fashioned fireplace and an enormous, L-shaped leather couch. Jake only spared them a glance though, much more impressed by the wall on the eastern side. It was entirely made up of glass panels, opening the room to the hillside and the rising sun. Through the winter-bare branches, Jake could make out the bridge they'd crossed to get to the cabin. It seemed an unexpectedly exhibitionist design for a man who preferred to play his cards close to the vest. Some of Jake's surprise must've shown on his face, because Constantino grinned widely. "They're tinted," he explained. "Amazing, isn't it? You could do all kinds of things in here and nobody would be the wiser."

Jake really didn't like the sound of that. He edged back until he almost stepped on the deputy's toes then decided to hell with it and took the final step. Steel-capped boots. Damn it. The deputy chuckled at the tiny, disappointed huff Jake couldn't quite contain. His paw came down on Jake's shoulder and propelled him forward. One hard push and Jake had to twist fast in mid-air to hit the couch butt-, and not face-first.

Constantino sat down on the other arm of the couch and dismissed the deputy with a nod. "Thanks, Mike. Get some breakfast, will you? I'll call when I need you."

Mike obediently made himself scarce, leaving Jake alone with Constantino. Jake wasn't sure that was an improvement. He was getting a seriously bad feeling about this. Still, wouldn't do to let on how unnerved he was, so Jake pulled himself up until he found a halfway comfortable position – not an easy feat with his hands cuffed behind his back – and faced Constantino. "What do you want?" he asked, out of patience. He'd never understood how his father and brother could enjoy the endless back and forth of politicians' talk. "Why'd you bring me here?"

Constantino leaned back against the backrest of the couch, watching Jake with cool, glittering eyes that betrayed little of what he thought. "I want to offer you a deal, Jake. Just between you and me."

Jake's eyes narrowed. "What kind of deal?"

"I want to fuck you."

Jake did a double-take, thinking he must've misheard. "Excuse me?"

"You can say no," Constantino went on, as if Jake hadn't said a word. "I'm not gonna rape you-"

"No," Jake barked immediately. "_Hell_, no! What the fuck are you-"

"Of course, if you don't bend over for me, I'm going to have to do something about your brother instead." Constantino's stare didn't waver, and Jake's outrage died with a weak sputter under that coldly calculating regard. "He's pretty broken already. Won't take much." He pretended to deliberate for a moment, but Jake got the impression that this was a carefully thought-out performance. "I'm thinking castration," Constantino mused, watching Jake's reactions like a hawk. "There are too many Greens around anyway... and it'll be kind of fitting, seeing as apparently he can't keep it zipped."

Where the hell had all the oxygen in the room gone? Jake took a breath and another one, but he couldn't seem to get any air past the panic in his chest. Constantino was serious. Jake had met some amazingly unhinged motherfuckers in his life, and he'd learned to tell the posers from the real thing. Phil Constantino, who'd played high school football with their father, who'd been at their parents' _wedding_, for Christ's sake, wouldn't hesitate to mutilate Eric if he didn't get what he wanted. Jake couldn't seem to wrap his mind around it. He didn't get where all this hatred came from, what had happened to turn a mostly friendly neighbor into a warmonger, torturer... rapist. "You don't- You don't really want to do this."

His denial sounded weak even to his own ears and was met with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I really do."

"Are you insane?" Jake asked, partly in disbelief, partly because it might've been an explanation for this bizarre turn of events. He tried to throw up his hands in agitation and nearly dislocated his shoulders. The cuffs bit into his wrists until he stopped struggling, but he barely felt the pain. "Listen to yourself," he implored. "You want to _fuck_ me? You're not even _gay_. Why would you wanna do that?"

Constantino smiled thinly, viciously. "Because the perfect way to fuck over Johnston Green is to fuck one of his sons, and I'm not queer enough to want to hump your brother."

Jake shuddered. "This is about my father? But..." _Just between you and me_, Constantino had said, and Jake believed him, if only because they both knew he'd fight this if he even suspected Constantino might taunt Johnston Green with Jake's violation.

A mirthless chuckle drifted through the room. Constantino sat up, sliding a little closer to study Jake's face. "Don't worry; he doesn't need to know." He shrugged. "_I'll_ know. _You_'ll know. Makes it even better." He paused. "Might be a bit harder to hide a gelding..."

Who would've thought it? Hawkins had been right. Sometimes, the fear of torture did get much better results than actual torture. It all depended on your definition of the word. Jake swallowed heavily, transfixed by Constantino's stare. He hadn't felt this cornered since the marauding Ravenwood unit had forced him into that standoff on the Tacoma Bridge. He hadn't had a choice then, and he didn't have a choice now.

"Eric doesn't get hurt, this stays between us, and it's a one-time deal." He was proud of himself; his voice barely even shook.

"You don't fight me, and you don't give me attitude," Constantino shot back.

"You use a condom."

Those piercing blue eyes darkened angrily. "No."

Jake's belly twisted once with nausea, but the anger bubbling up around it helped clear his head and accept the situation. This was going to happen. He couldn't take out both Constantino and the deputy, and he couldn't risk Eric. Getting fucked wouldn't kill him, wasn't something he absolutely couldn't cope with; he'd fooled around with guys before, he'd just never reckoned someone would ever force him. Didn't mean he was going to be a passive victim.

"If you want to stick your fucking dick in me, you're gonna wear a fucking rubber," Jake snarled. "Don't be fucking stupid!"

Constantino scowled at him, but he must've seen the sense in Jake's request, because he relented grudgingly. "I'll get something. Stand up."

Easier said than done, but Jake managed to get to his feet with at least a modicum of his usual grace. Constantino dug a key ring out of his pocket and motioned at him to turn around so he could unlock the cuffs and take them off. "There's a bathroom through there," he said, pointing. "I want you back here showered and naked when I come back. You have ten minutes."

With that parting shot, he stomped away, hopefully to fetch condoms.

* * *

Alone in Constantino's living room, Jake started his preparations by bending over, resting his hands on his knees, and taking a few deep breaths until he stopped feeling like he was going to pass out any second now. Jesus. What the _hell_? He'd known the man since he'd been a kid. Hadn't much liked him even then, but _damn it_. Shit like this wasn't supposed to happen back home in Kansas. Shit like this wasn't supposed to happen, _period_. He felt like he'd gotten sucked into a bad porno.

_Don't think about it. Don't. Think._

The door Constantino had pointed out led to a windowless bedroom with a small bathroom attached. No lock on the bathroom door, and the window above the toilet was too narrow to squeeze through. He searched the room and briefly contemplated assassinating Phil Constantino with the cheap plastic toothbrush he discovered, but Jake wasn't Hawkins. He wasn't absolutely certain he'd succeed, and he couldn't afford to fuck up.

He didn't acknowledge it, but there was a part of him that thought maybe he deserved this. It was a venomous whisper from the depths of the black hole of guilt in his soul he'd opened with a single, badly aimed bullet in a village a lifetime from here. The whisper had been his constant companion ever since twelve-year-old Amira Sa'eed had died in the dirt. He tried not to listen to it, but he'd never tried to expel it. He didn't have the right.

In the end, he did what he'd been told. He undressed, used the toothbrush for its original purpose, and took a shower – God knew he'd needed one. The water was cold, but he didn't mind, happy to be able to scrub away several days' worth of sweat and grime. Nothing he could do about the stubble on his face, but it wasn't too bad (wouldn't get bad for a while, because unlike Eric he wasn't exactly blessed with a lot of body hair) and it might give Constantino whisker burn, so he didn't worry about it.

Constantino was waiting for him when he returned to the living room, his clothes tucked under his arm. A fire had been lit in the big fireplace, a blessed hint of warmth starting to ease the winter chill that was making Jake's nipples pucker and his balls try to crawl up into his body. Constantino gave him a slow, approving once-over then held out a glass with a murky liquid. Jake put down his belongings and eyed the offering suspiciously. "What's that?"

"Apple juice," Constantino replied, patiently.

"And?"

"Something to help you relax." Jake took a step back. Constantino bared his teeth, impatient. "You can drink it, or we can cram it down your throat, but you're taking it. It's not gonna knock you out or get you addicted, it's just gonna make you a little more pliant."

Jake shook his head, his pulse picking up. "I'm plenty pliant, thanks. I'm not taking anything."

Constantino shrugged. "Suit yourself. Mike!"

Mike appeared in the doorway, still built like a brick shithouse and about as easy to sway. He'd taken off his uniform jacket and his badge, which made it even more obvious where his loyalties lay. Naked and unarmed, Jake figured he could start playing cat and mouse back and forth across the living room until they caught him, or he could cooperate. His muscles tensed in preparation for flight. Constantino's smile slipped. "You make us chase you, and I swear we're doing this bareback."

Caught between drugs and STDs, Jake reluctantly decided to take his chances with whatever chemicals were in that drink. No need to tell Constantino his body tended to react slowly to most drugs; it was annoying sometimes, especially when he'd desperately needed the relief of painkillers, but it might give him an advantage here. He took the glass and sipped, but tasted nothing but cold apple juice. Mike stayed until he'd downed it all then grabbed the empty glass and disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Relax," Constantino murmured, and pulled Jake's bare body against his fully clothed one.

_Relax_, whispered Hawkins' voice deep down underneath the fearful drumming of Jake's heart. _You do what you gotta do, and you don't think about it_.

So Jake closed his eyes and thought of Hawkins.

 

**Chapter Five:   
"Easy Does It."**

For years, the Jericho Greens had been the bane of Phil Constantino's existence. It had started in high school with the usual petty rivalries – playing football and losing more games than they won; being invited to a dance and ending up watching Johnston flirt successfully with the girls Phil fancied; going on hunting trips and being forced to congratulate Johnston on shooting more turkeys, fatter hares, bigger deer. Phil was a competitive guy. He didn't like being second best and Johnston Green could've won Olympic gold at showing Phil up.

You weren't allowed to show resentment though, at least not openly. Sore losers didn't command as much respect as people who could pretend they knew it was all just a game, good sport, a friendly contest. It would've been a sign of weakness to let on how much Johnston got to him. So Phil swallowed down his growing bitterness and kept trying to best Johnston.

Johnston joined the Army; Phil the Navy. Johnston became a Ranger, an officer, went to war and returned with a medal. Phil wanted to become a SEAL, fucked up his shoulder in Hell Week (read: right at the beginning of basic training), and ended up behind a desk as a Storekeeper Third Class.

Johnston brought home a red-headed spitfire of a wife who adored him and made him stupidly happy as well as provoking the envy and admiration of his peers; Phil met Private Mike Keane, discovered he might maybe, possibly be a homosexual after all, and promptly took up residence in the proverbial closet, door locked and bolted.

Johnston fathered two sons, one an adorable little hellion and the other sweet enough to make Phil want to yack; Phil lived alone in a one-bedroom house with a half-deaf dog that got itself run over by a car within a year.

Figured that Johnston would run for mayor in Jericho; figured he'd be elected on first try. Phil smiled and shook his hand and started planning his own campaign that same day. He won, became mayor of New Bern, but the victory tasted stale: it had taken him two tries.

Things got a bit better after that, partly because Mike moved to New Bern and took a job at the local sheriff's department, but mostly because Phil was too busy with his new responsibilities to pay all that much attention to Johnston Green. Turned out Phil had a knack for politics after all and his experience in organizing supplies came in handy. He revived the struggling factory with a combination of grants and friendly intervention, successfully encouraging a change in management that proved beneficial for the town. He fought for funding to upgrade the infrastructure and won, then persuaded Costco to launch a store in New Bern instead of in Jericho. By the time the Costco opened for business, Phil had successfully enforced a modernization and general refurbishing of the town center so visitors from neighboring towns would stay and spend money there, too, instead of only at the Costco. The concept worked beautifully.

It was about then Phil learned about the escapades of Johnston's eldest boy, Jake. Rumor said the kid smoked, played hooky, hung out with the white trash crowd around Jonah Prowse, and generally got into more mischief than Johnston could tolerate. Phil got a serious kick out of the notion that at least one of those two perfect little angels appeared to be breaking pattern. Truth be told, he might've fallen a little bit in love with Jake even then, just for getting to Johnston the way he did and screwing up the man's up to then flawless performance.

The first time Phil had seen Jake, Jake had been a solemn-eyed boy of about five. When he met him again, Jake was fourteen, and at first, Phil didn't even realize the gangly teenager in the too-big leather jacket was Johnston Green's mouthy offspring. Jake was lean where Johnston was burly, his features fine and almost exotic when compared to Johnston's more traditionally masculine good looks. It was the spirit peeking out through those dark sloe eyes that gave the kid away, because that was Johnston all over, just more restless, edgier. Prettier. Sexier.

Phil wanted to fuck him so badly he ached with it.

It took him years to get it under control, this unplanned, insane desire. He was careful, made sure never to go to Jericho on his own, never to be alone with Jake. If showing resentment wasn't socially acceptable, fucking your rival's underage son probably would've gotten him lynched. It helped to rationalize it; tell himself he wasn't really lusting after Jake but merely transferring his issues. Jake was a means to an end, a way to hit Johnston. A theoretical means at that, because as long as Jake was underage, he was untouchable, and on the day Jake turned sixteen Phil had a little run-in with Jonah Prowse, who politely suggested he stay the fuck away from Jake if he wanted to keep his balls, and when Prowse finally lost his hold over Jake, Jake left, and that was that.

Then the bombs went off and everything changed.

Suddenly, people needed a strong man to take over; in everyday life, but especially after Ravenwood fell upon New Bern and wiped out lives, supplies, and morale. In a matter of hours, Phil Constantino took over the position of sheriff as well as mayor. It made him the single most powerful man in town and it opened his eyes to a few facts, the most important of which being that society as he'd known it didn't exist anymore. The rules had been broken; old principles and values could be negated. This new world was Old Testament; no quarter given, no more room for mercy. You had to be strong to survive, and if you were strong, you made your own rules. Phil's word became law, and after Phil went to Jericho and saw how good the other town had it while his own people suffered, Phil's word was war.

And while he got his people working on weapons and training to use them, he very carefully did not think about two other things he'd learned when he'd gone to negotiate about the wind turbines: Jake Green was back in Jericho... and Jonah Prowse had been exiled.

It didn't have to mean anything, certainly not that Jake was his for the taking now. Phil had seen the man Jake had become – someone strong enough, _vicious_ enough, to defend himself and others. This Jake didn't need a Jonah Prowse to shield him; he was plenty capable of violence himself. So no use thinking about it. No reason to get excited, to start daydreaming about those fathomless eyes and firm little ass again.

Until they caught Eric Green trying to sabotage the factory. Until they caught _Jake_ trying to do the same. Until Phil was given the one man he desired most _and_ the means to bring Jake to heel at the same time. Had to be fate... and you don't argue with fate.

* * *

Having Jake and _having_ Jake, Phil discovered, were two entirely different things. Sure, he could've just taken the younger man by force. Tied him down and bared his ass so he could mount Jake like a mare and fuck him unconscious. Only Phil's obsession wasn't just about physical want and he'd spent enough lonely nights picking apart and analyzing his mixed feelings on the subject to be aware of that.

What Phil wanted was to _own_ Jake, break him and put him together again so he became Phil's. He wanted to dominate Jake, put him on his knees, on his back, pry open his most secret places and push inside. It wasn't merely about screwing Jake; it was about making Jake yield, having him acknowledge Phil as his superior. It also was about taking something from Johnston Green that couldn't be replaced. Phil couldn't quite decide which prospect excited him more: to top Jake literally or Johnston figuratively, but he figured in doing the former he'd automatically achieve the latter, so it was all good. For once in his life, Phil was going to come first, eclipse Johnston's presence with his own.

He talked it through with Mike, because whatever else they were to each other, he and Mike were partners first and foremost. Mike knew about Jake, had a good idea about that twisted tangle of lust-need-anger-envy that drove Phil. He was the one to suggest drawing it out, making it a real exercise in submission instead of a simple banging. Easier to deal with a quick fuck, Mike argued. Jake was going to have a much harder time forgetting if it took a while, if he was forced to _participate_. It made sense, and since this might be the only chance Phil was going to get he wanted to make a lasting impression.

No need to worry about Mike. When it came to sex, Mike was versatile; he had no trouble with the idea of tag-teaming an unwilling bed-partner. They'd shared before, taken weekend trips to Kansas City to spend a night in a motel with whatever boy whore reminded Phil of Jake, and the results had always been satisfactory for Mike. Less so for Phil, but then, he'd never thought he'd ever actually get to have the real Jake, so he'd made do.

After meeting the object of Phil's obsession in person for the first time, Mike was the one to mix up a little something to make Jake more docile. "If that one changes his mind in the middle of the game, he'll take off every dick within reach," he said, and that decided that.

They planned it carefully, both the political use of the Green siblings and the sexual coercion. It wasn't complicated, but timing was essential and Phil wasn't about to take chances when it came to Jake. It helped that he didn't give a shit about the younger brother. Eric was a bonus at the rally, because people knew him as Johnston Green's right hand man and obedient son, but when it came down to it, Eric was merely the lever; Jake was the prize. Put them side by side, and people might remember amiable, fair-minded Eric Green, but they'd look at Jake and see dark, unreadable eyes and the coiled readiness of a soldier in civilian guise. It was a stark contrast; it was perfect.

Eric was even more useful when it came to leashing Jake. No subtlety needed there, because Jake was a lot more straightforward than his father. Hurt Eric, show Jake they were willing to go there, then isolate Jake and make sure he knew just how bad it could get for Eric and what Jake could do to prevent that. Worked like a charm.

"Don't let him know this is for you," Mike warned before they went to get Jake from the cell, and Phil agreed. He'd been a politician for years; he knew words could become weapons. He also knew if he gave Jake an opening, a weakness to be exploited, Jake would find a way to use it. So Phil told Jake it was about Johnston, and it wasn't a lie – it was just true enough to be convincing.

* * *

It was a power trip simply to hold Jake's naked body against his own fully clothed one.

Jake was taller than Phil, but the fact that he was barefoot and Phil in boots put them at the same height. Without the protective bulk of layers of shirts, Jake felt deceptively slender in Phil's arms, pared down to sleek muscle and sharp angles by the hardships of the past months... maybe the past five years. Phil put his hands on Jake's narrow waist and hooked his chin over one of Jake's wide, bony shoulders to look down his back at the tempting swell of his ass. Jake's skin felt soft and cool in the chilly air; it pebbled under his touch. He trailed his fingers down until he could cup the smooth cheeks and squeeze them gently. They filled his hands as if they'd been made for him. Jake shivered; the steady throb of his pulse against Phil's cheek picked up notably.

"Easy," Phil murmured, surprised by an unexpected rush of affection. He liked Jake like this; naked and obedient, all that fighting spirit held firmly in check. He'd bet Johnston had never seen his son so compliant. He'd bet Jonah hadn't either.

"Easy," he repeated, letting go of Jake's ass to take a step back and look his fill. Jake stood stock still, feet slightly apart for balance, arms hanging loosely at his sides, shoulders straight. His cock lay soft and vulnerable in the cradle of his balls, inviting touch. Phil didn't try to resist. He ran just a fingertip from the base down to the head, no foreskin there to obstruct his view. It made Jake flinch when he rubbed the pad of his finger over the slit, so he did it again, harder, loving how Jake took it without complaint even though he clearly didn't like it. He kept his hand there as he continued his visual inspection, gorging himself on Jake's surrender as much as his body.

Jake had a tattoo on his left forearm; Phil studied it for a moment, but it was in a foreign language – Italian, maybe? – and Phil wasn't about to admit ignorance and ask what it meant. His gaze was snagged briefly again by the set of dog tags Jake hadn't taken off; those looked paramilitary to Phil, very basic, but they suited Jake so Phil didn't mind. The tags drew Phil's attention to Jake's nipples, stiffened by the lingering coolness of the air, and he tightened his hold on Jake's cock and pinched one of the pretty teats until Jake couldn't hold back a guttural grunt of discomfort. Phil eased up immediately, rewarding the exposure.

When he finally looked up, Jake's face was pale, his eyes empty. Trying to distance himself from what was happening, approaching this as a soldier would torture. Phil smiled; he hadn't expected any less. Jake would come around. They'd _make_ him come around. _Start small_, he reminded himself. Jake was braced for violence, as prepared for sexual assault as a man could be, assuming he'd be bent over and plowed. The trick was going to be to erode his armor little by little until he couldn't hide anymore.

Phil put his hands on Jake's shoulders, pressed down. Jake hesitated, didn't move, then his lips thinned into a harsh line and he went to his knees woodenly. It put him directly in line with the considerable tent in Phil's pants. Phil grinned at the grimace Jake pulled briefly before he managed to school his features into blankness again. Time to mess with the kid's expectations a bit. He stepped aside to make room for Mike, who was already smirking hungrily. Mike loved these domination games almost as much as Phil did.

"Easy does it," Phil told Jake, petting his head then pushing it firmly towards Mike's crotch. "He likes it slow. You two have fun, I'll be right back."

He didn't go far, of course. Wouldn't want to miss any of this. He watched Mike rub his pants-covered dick against Jake's face, letting him smell it, feel the size of it. Jake looked like he very much wanted to bite if off, but he held still and let it happen, and, damn, that was hotter than anything Phil had seen in a long while. He grabbed the lube and one of the toys he'd bought a while ago with one of their whores in mind. They'd never gotten to use it, but this made it worth the wait and then some.

The sound of a zipper told him Mike was getting ready for some mouth on dick action and Phil made good use of Jake's distraction, kicking Jake's knees apart so he had full access to Jake's privates. As an added bonus, the unexpected change in position made Jake lose his balance and forced him to put his hands on Mike's hips to brace himself. Mike and Phil exchanged a grin when they caught the hissed expletive breaking through Jake's resolve. Foul language, but a good sign as far as securing Jake's full attention was concerned.

"Watch the mouth," Mike reprimanded anyway, and promptly forced Jake's lips against his bared erection. It was more than Phil would've dared, but apparently Jake's fear for his brother outweighed his pride, because he didn't chomp down. Whatever he did do, it made Mike moan in appreciation and hump his face. Phil couldn't wait to do the same.

First things first though. He crouched behind Jake, loving the way the younger man's muscles tensed, acutely aware of Phil's closeness. So open already yet not open enough by far, and Phil put a hand between Jake's shoulder blades and pushed until Mike had to steady Jake, until Phil could see the clenched entrance to Jake's body. He reached out and pressed two lubed fingers against it, felt the warmth of it, the nervous contraction of the threatened sphincter.

Jake's breath stuttered against Mike's cock and Mike groaned. "Good boy," he praised and jerked his hips. "C'mon. Lick my balls." Jake shifted, either to obey or try to evade, and Phil slid his fingers in past clamping resistance, slow and deep.

Not yet victory, but definitely a good start.

 

**Chapter Six:   
"Columbus!"**

**New Bern Town Hall, Prison Tract**

Margaret Mullen (and, oh, how she still hated her mother for that name) had played many roles both pre-, and post-apocalypse, most memorably that of a U.S. marine. Being the Judas in this most recent act of the tragicomedy that was her life shouldn't have made her as uncomfortable as it did. It was all about survival, and Maggie had become good at that at least. She'd always been bad at relationships, a shitty daughter and well-deserved divorcee, she likely wouldn't have ever gotten a decent job or started to recycle her trash, but she'd kept going through hunger riots and anarchy, scrambling to stay one step ahead of obliteration.

She had no illusions about her status in this new order. She owned nothing but the clothes on her back. She was nobody. She had no one. When she died, she'd be forgotten. Maggie didn't want to die. She'd been surprised to realize just how much will to live popped up when suddenly living wasn't an undisputable right anymore. You had to fight for it – so Maggie fought. She couldn't afford to care for anyone, because one mistake, one faulty character assessment, and that'd be it. End of the line. A shallow grave, if she was lucky; a stew pot and several guilty bellies if she wasn't. She'd seen it happen, had no intention of ending like that.

But Jake... She liked Jake. Couldn't help it. He made her wonder. Had she had anybody to love, would she have fought for them as fiercely as Jake did for his family and his town? Would she have been able to utilize all those unexpected talents she'd discovered to actually make a difference somewhere?

She'd told him the truth when she'd said she wanted to go with him to Jericho. Not quite so much when she'd pretended there was nowhere else she _could_ go, but he didn't have to know that. It was an out she kept for herself, just in case. For once, she didn't think she'd use it. Jake, even caged and half out of his mind with worry for his brother, had given her something she hadn't had in a long while: hope. Part of it was the way he talked about this Hawkins guy, his absolute confidence in the man's ability to save them and his willingness to do so. Part of it was the way Jake looked at her, like she wasn't just a means to an end. Like she meant something, was worth something to him... could be trusted not only with his own life, but his brother's and Hawkins'. She hadn't known she had any buttons left to push, but Jake had found them all without even looking.

She thanked him by ratting him out.

 

**Ted Lewis' Hunting Cabin, outside of New Bern**

It was a place like out of a horror movie. Deep in the woods, accessible only via a potholed dirt road that thoroughly tested the police cruiser's shocks (they weren't good), and half hidden by a copse of trees even when you did make it to the end of the trail. The wooden walls were dark with age, the roof sunken, the porch wrapped around the structure like a rotting shawl draped around a crouching beast. It looked abandoned, but everybody with a half-decent cultural memory had to sense it wasn't. It was merely waiting for anyone stupid enough to prance into its maw. Maggie's hands shook as her mind teetered close to overload with flashbacks of a dozen slasher flicks. She wasn't cut out for this type of adventure. Her survival instincts were too well developed, kept yelling at her to move _away_ from this predator's lair as fast as she could, not play sitting duck right in front of it. Not that she had a choice in this case.

They made her get out of the car with them. Two of the deputies headed for the cabin with their weapons drawn while the third stayed with her. Watching them go, Maggie kind of felt sorry for them – they reminded her of the extras in those horror films, the ones who usually got killed off first, much to the audience's delight. Maggie wasn't delighted. Maggie had a very standoffish relationship with Death.

She stood with her shoulders hunched and fingers clenched, her pulse hammering faster and faster as time went by and no sound reached them from the cabin. No sound reached them _at all_; the forest around them was eerily quiet. She knew then that Hawkins was indeed there and also that he was a much scarier son-of-a-bitch than Jake had let on. Maggie had expected shots to be fired, or at least furniture to be overturned in a fight. The silence was unnerving.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one creeped out, because the deputy guarding her got twitchy after a few minutes had passed without word from his partners. He grabbed her by the arm, pulled her along as he walked a bit closer, staring uneasily at the sinister little shed.

"What the hell is taking them so long?" he muttered.

The cabin remained uncommunicative.

After a second's hesitation, the deputy dragged Maggie back to the car. He freed one of her wrists so he could cuff her to the open car door then went after Presumed Victim # 1 and Presumed Victim # 2. Alone. Maggie would've admired his cojones if she hadn't been too scared to think by that point.

The deputy reached the cabin and opened the door. The hinges creaked a final warning, but obviously, Presumed Victim # 3 hadn't watched the same movies as Maggie... or maybe he just hadn't paid attention. He went in. Maggie held her breath and clutched the metal frame of the car door. She felt the sudden need to pee.

A second later she almost did piss herself when the cabin door was flung open and a man came running towards her with a gun in his hands, roaring "Who are you?" in a deep, angry voice as he sprinted across the uneven ground like it was a racetrack. He looked like an enraged panther, eyes blazing in a snarling, dark-skinned face, not a motion wasted as he charged at her.

Maggie turned to flee, was brought up short by the handcuffs, and squealed out a panicked, "Don't shoot!"

"_Who are you?_" he yelled again, closer now, so much closer. He wasn't only surefooted, he was _fast_, and he looked mad enough to shoot her dead without waiting for an answer to his question.

Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, he was going to kill her, he was going to shoot her dead and eat her, and she went to her knees in a desperate effort to show she was harmless, she was a civilian, she was scrawny and sweaty and about to marinate in urine. "I'm with Jake," she screamed, his name her final defense – her only defense. "I'm with Jake! Columbus! Columbus!"

Hawkins – if it was Hawkins, please, let it be Hawkins, else Jake's name wouldn't be worth shit to this roaring, furious killer – came round the car door so he had her in his sights again. He aimed the gun at her face, the barrel yawning like the gate of hell. "What did you say?" he bellowed.

Maggie lost it. She'd expected someone like Jake, capable and dangerous, but ultimately a decent – more importantly, a _sane_ – person. She was completely overwhelmed by this savage attack, by the unforeseen aggressiveness. "Columbus!" she shrieked hysterically, clinging to what Jake had told her, knowing Jake's codeword was her only chance. "Columbus! Columbus! He said if I said 'Columbus', you'd know he sent me!"

Strong fingers closed around her arm, dragged her up while she kept babbling for her life. "I- I was with him in prison. He sent me to help you. He sent me to help you!" She was going to die, she was going to die, he was going to shoot her, oh God, oh good God, she didn't want to die. She barely registered he was patting her down; all she could think was that he was checking how much meat there was on her bones. He was gonna eat her. Oh God, he was gonna eat her. This wasn't Hawkins, couldn't be Hawkins, but Jake had said- had said-

"Columbus! Columbus!"

He took a step back, gun still up, but some of his ferocity gone. "Okay," he told her, his tone a lot calmer than before now that he'd established she was unarmed in addition to terrified. "Okay, I got it." He moved a bit, the sinuous, deliberating sway of a snake pondering whether or not to strike. "How's Jake doing?" he asked, his tone deceptively soft, and Maggie realized her life may well depend on her answer. This was someone who cared for Jake; cared for him deeply.

"He's okay," she swore, hoping with all her heart it was true, because she had a feeling things would get really damn ugly if Jake wasn't.

Hawkins' "Yeah?" sounded a bit doubtful, but he tossed her the keys, which she took as a good sign. Of course, he was also still aiming his gun at her, but Maggie would take what she could get. She wasn't greedy. She just wanted to live.

She was still fiddling with the lock with badly shaking fingers when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and startled so badly she almost dropped the keys. However, the guy who came towards them didn't look nearly as threatening as Hawkins. He seemed a bit dazed as he wandered closer, like a kid caught in the eye of a hurricane, ducking under a low-hanging branch and holding on to the straps of a black leather bag like it held the secrets of the universe. Or maybe a clean pair of shorts.

Hawkins didn't take his eyes from her, but she imagined he did sound faintly exasperated as he introduced the newcomer. "That's Ted. He's with me."

Deducing from Ted's slightly shell-shocked appearance that he'd survived Hawkins' company for a while, Maggie calmed down considerably. "I'm Maggie," she offered, then, just in case Hawkins hadn't internalized it yet, "Jake sent me." The damn lock wouldn't give, and her nervous mouth wouldn't stop moving. "Where are the cops?"

"They've been dealt with." It was a chillingly emotionless statement, not meant to reassure.

Ted didn't make it any better by getting a queasy look on his face, glancing at the cabin, and adding faintly, "Yeah. You- you don't wanna go in there."

Amen, brother. Maggie had no intention of going anywhere _near_ that place. She finally fought free from the cuffs, glanced at Hawkins, then back at Ted, still much too scared to dare meet Hawkins' hard stare right on. She didn't want him to feel challenged. She didn't want him to _notice_ her if she could help it.

Picking up on the tension, Ted cleared his throat and held out the leather bag to Hawkins. "Here, this is everything."

Finally, _finally_, Hawkins lowered his weapon. He snatched the bag, dropped it on the hood of the squad car, and started to rummage around in it. He still looked frightening, but not quite as likely to string Maggie up by her own guts if she moved wrong. Jake had been right though, if anyone could get him and Eric out of New Bern, it was this man. She didn't doubt Hawkins would take Jake from Constantino if he had to level the whole town to get to him. There'd been something in his eyes whenever she'd said Jake's name, something that made her think there was little – if anything – Hawkins wouldn't do for Jake.

Maggie sidled closer cautiously, because this was something she could understand. She might even be starting to feel the same. "So, what's the plan?"

Hawkins glanced up at her. "The plan?" He checked his gun, already moving on. "There's gonna be an explosion in town," he predicted darkly, proving once again that Maggie was _good_ at judging people. "Hopefully, it'll cause enough chaos that we can somehow get Jake and Eric out of there."

Oh, great. He had it under control. She could lie low and- and then she was talking again, volunteering her help like a fucking lemming, and the worst thing was, she knew she'd do it, too. Do whatever was necessary to save Jake, because Jake was the only person who'd ever known her for who she really was and believed in her anyway. Apparently, her mother had been right: every woman could fall for the right man.

Figured, that Jake was already involved with the real life version of Wolverine.

 

**Chapter Seven:   
"Let's Take A Walk."**

**New Bern**

They did make it to New Bern by dawn, Russell clutching the door handle through most of the drive there. He didn't complain though, never once tried to deny Johnston the right to drive or put the pedal to the metal. His acquiescence didn't reassure the older man in the least, because it was an indicator of how concerned Russell was about Jake. Eric, too, though Johnston supposed that might be mostly for Jake's sake as well. Eric generally moved in completely different circles than his older brother. It had been one hell of a relief in the past; still was, for the most part, because – with the sole exception of Stanley Richmond and possibly that ex-cop, Robert Hawkins (though that one seemed almost too good to be true) – Jake's closest friends tended to run on the wild side.

New Bern was barricaded like a refugee camp. A heavily armed camp, that was. Seeing the fortifications, the machine gun mounted on the back of one of the trucks, and the grim-faced sentries, Johnston's concern for his boys increased. This was not the sleepy neighboring town he remembered. This was a wounded, dangerous place, and Johnston didn't want either of his sons near it.

They were stopped as soon as they approached the fortified trucks barring the road. Inwardly cursing the delay, Johnston rolled down the driver's side window and waited for Russell to introduce him, which Russell did promptly. "This is Johnston Green from Jericho," he told the leader of the guard in a tone that suggested Johnston was important and the man better get hopping. "We need to talk to the sheriff."

If anything, the guard's demeanor became warier at hearing Johnston's name. He didn't appear outright hostile, but it was clear he wasn't going to simply wave them through either. "He's up at the cabin," he said, taking a step back. "We have orders he's not to be interrupted."

For some reason, Johnston's gut twinged at that. He couldn't tell whether it was impatience or some sort of sixth sense warning him something bad was going on; things that weren't to be interrupted usually spelled trouble. Johnston only knew he was not going to sit here and wait for Constantino to finish whatever it was he was doing while God knew what was happening to Eric and Jake somewhere in this town.

Turning his head to look at the guard was an exercise in self-discipline, but Johnston managed to keep his facial expression civil even though his voice was lodged firmly in the terse superior-officer pitch that used to get Jake's hackles up every damn time. "He'll wanna be interrupted for this," he told the man, leaving no room for argument.

Still the guard hesitated until Russell gave him an inciting nod, utilizing his own authority. The man was not as small a fish in the New Bern pond as Gray Anderson believed, Johnston realized. Not officially a player, but _de facto_ one of the people who got things done... a position kinda like Jake's before he'd stepped up and founded the Jericho Rangers. A valuable ally, more so than Johnston had anticipated.

He watched the sentry move away to arrange their meeting with Constantino and only then stole a quick look at Russell. Russell glanced back, tense and unhappy, seeming almost as anxious to locate Jake as Johnston felt to find both his sons.

* * *

They left Russell's bulky yellow truck at the station and were ushered into the back of a police cruiser to be chauffeured out of New Bern and up to Constantino's cabin. The property was huge and surprisingly well maintained given the overall state of things – especially considering the miserable condition of most of the town, Johnston thought. He knew _he_ hadn't had the time or energy to spare to take proper care of the Greens' family ranch, so either Constantino had much greater reserves than Johnston or his priorities were more than a tad skewed.

The man himself was waiting for them by a wooden bridge that marked the entrance to the heart of the property. Johnston could make out bits and pieces of an expensive-looking hunting cabin the size of a farmhouse beyond the broad canopy. Lots of new wood and tinted glass, discreetly shielded from curious stares by tall trees and the bridge itself.

Constantino ambled closer as the car pulled up, hands stuck in the pockets of his jacket. He didn't smile when Johnston and Russell got out to greet him. As a matter of fact, he looked a bit flustered to Johnston, like he'd been interrupted while doing something shady. For a second, as he met Johnston's gaze, there was a flash of... triumph? defiance? ...in his eyes that Johnston didn't like at all, but it was gone so fast Johnston couldn't be sure it had really been there. He stored the memory carefully but didn't dwell on it, knowing his worry for his sons was making him antsy and prone to overreactions. He didn't appreciate hysteria in others, so he kept a particularly tight rein on himself whenever he felt so much as a hint of emotional instability.

"Phil," he greeted, determined to keep this civil if it killed him. "Nice spread you got there."

Again with a weird look, this time an uncomfortably flat one. "I always wanted you to see this place."

Constantino didn't take his hands out of his pockets until Johnston offered his, but then at least he reacted. His grip was a bit too hard, the only sign of nerves he showed. It probably helped that Johnston kept his mission statement as short and peaceable as he could: "Well, I just wish it were under better circumstances," he admitted. He noted the too-firm squeeze, but didn't pick up the challenge. "I just found out Eric's been missing a couple 'a days. I'd like a little update on that."

Behind him, Russell shifted uncomfortably. "And... there was an incident at the salt mine," he confessed. "Some of our people got hurt."

Johnston would've preferred if the man had kept that particular bombshell to himself for a bit longer, but he could see where Russell was coming from. Could be he was right to get it out in the open now, so it couldn't bite them in the ass later, but still. Honesty was nice and fine when it was mutual; Johnston was certain that wasn't the case here.

Constantino didn't seem angered by the news about the shootout. If anything, he looked vaguely pleased. Hard to tell, as he turned around and nodded towards the bridge almost immediately. "Let's take a walk," he suggested.

Johnston had no choice but to follow.

* * *

They left the armed guards and deputies behind and walked out onto the bridge to have their powwow in relative privacy. Johnston had to admit Constantino had indeed picked an exceptionally beautiful spot for his cabin; the sky was just turning pink with the first touches of sunlight and, all around them, the forest was slowly waking up. The wooden boards beneath their feet creaked quietly, a sound that almost drowned out the hypnotic lapping of the water against and around the sturdy bridge piers. The air was crisp and cool but not too chilly. Winter was on the retreat, finally. Johnston had never been so happy to see it go, because this time, the cold had almost taken his firstborn. He never wanted to see Jake that pale and fading again.

"This mine deal," Constantino said to Russell once they were out of earshot of his men, "this is your idea?"

Russell didn't deny it. "I thought it could help the town," he explained, not _quite_ mutinous, as if he didn't approve of Constantino's policy but didn't quite dare oppose him openly in front of Johnston either. "Create a partnership."

Constantino must've noticed, because his laconic reply wasn't forgiving. "That didn't quite work out, did it?"

Time to get involved, Johnston thought, before this conversation drifted off topic and into an argument between Russell and Constantino. "Well, it was mishandled all the way around." Jesus, had it ever. "We were hoping we could reach some agreement."

Instead of matching Johnston's conciliatory tone, Constantino glared back at him over his shoulder. "It's a little late for that; you opened fire on our citizens."

"We don't know who shot first," Russell chipped in instantly, his quick defense almost overlapping with Johnston's annoyed, "Come on, Phil. A bunch of guys shows up with guns in the night trying to take our salt. What would you have done?"

That's when things got surreal. Constantino stopped, turned, and faced Johnston with a look of such righteous affront Johnston blinked in surprise. And then he felt as if he'd fallen headfirst into the Twilight Zone, because when Constantino opened his mouth, what came out was pure political propaganda that had a ring of practiced repetition to it that sent a shiver down Johnston's spine. "Jericho's continued acts of aggression against this town are unjustified-"

"What 'continuous acts'?" Johnston interrupted, flabbergasted. "We're neighbors, for God's sake!"

Constantino's eyes narrowed. His mouth tightened. "Didn't hear much talk of neighbors when you sent Ravenwood straight to our door."

So that was the issue here? Those goddamn mercenaries? Johnston frowned, trying to understand Constantino's ire. "We almost blew everything to hell and gone trying to defend ourselves against those mercenaries." Jake had almost blown _himself_ to hell and gone to stop them. Johnston felt ill just thinking about it. He was almost pathetically grateful he hadn't been there to see his son square off against those killers with a _detonator_ in his hand. Sometimes, he worried about Jake. "We had no idea where they were headed next."

His words weren't received well. Constantino's face hardened with anger, frightening in its intensity. "You couldn't try and warn us?" he asked, softly. His voice got a lot louder as he went on, gesticulating furiously. "You couldn't help us when they were raiding what little we had left, shooting whoever got in their way? My deputies? My friends?"

It could've happened to Jericho. If Jake hadn't gone against Johnston's orders, if Eric hadn't put aside his dislike of Jonah Prowse and called the outlaw for help, and if Jonah hadn't for some reason dropped everything and come to their aid...

Ravenwood would've done all this to Jericho.

Before he could offer a word of sympathy, Constantino's features twisted into an ugly mask of pure outrage. "Then I find both of your sons – _both_ of them – in my factory, trying to destroy the last form of capital this town's got."

Whoa. What the–? Johnston was starting to feel somewhat punch-drunk. "Slow down."

Constantino glared. "Jake was apprehended yesterday attempting to sabotage my factory."

Jake had done _what_? Johnston frowned, struck again by an impression of wrongness. Jake could be a mite impulsive and he did stupid things occasionally, but he'd changed a lot since he'd come back, and these accusations didn't make sense in the light of how hard Jake had been fighting for Jericho since everything had gone to hell. "That makes no sense. The factory's producing wind turbines."

Glacial blue eyes bore into his, implacable. No yelling, not anymore, and the lack of volume masked some of the emotions behind the bare bones of information. "Your sons are pretty bent on the idea. I caught Eric the day before trying to do the same thing. We're holding both of them."

_Both_ of them.

Eric had tried to sabotage the factory. _Eric_. Who couldn't even sabotage a school play, because that would've required sneakiness. Jake, Johnston might've bought. He loved the boy, but Jake had a destructive streak and he could be unpredictable and ruthless when he felt wronged. Eric, on the other hand, never used force unless there was a damn good reason for it. And according to Constantino, Eric had moved against the factory _first_.

Which meant Johnston's gut instinct had nailed it: Constantino was hankering for a fight. A big one. God knew what they were doing or building in that factory, but Johnston had no doubt his sons had had good reason to try and stop it. Constantino had to know this, so this argument, this self-righteous, self-pitying rant about how Jericho was to blame for New Bern's run-in with Ravenwood was nothing but blowing smoke in Johnston's eyes.

God knew what they were doing to Eric and Jake, what had been done to them already for seeing whatever they'd seen.

He was vaguely aware of Russell looking back and forth between them in alarm, trying to decipher the subtext, but everything paled behind the veil of red that was slowly creeping in at the edges of Johnston's vision. Fuck diplomacy. Fuck civility. Phil Constantino was holding Johnston's children prisoner and if there was one trait shared by every single Green it was that all bets were off when someone threatened their family.

The breath Johnston exhaled tasted of blood yet to be spilled. He stepped closer with a single smooth, controlled movement, until he was nose to nose with Constantino, the brim of his Stetson almost pressing against the man's forehead, a feeble barrier against Johnston's white-hot anger. "You listen to me," Johnston snarled. "I don't care what you think we've done to you. If any harm comes to either of those boys, this is not gonna end well."

You had to hand it to Phil Constantino – he had balls. Most men would've automatically taken a step back at the abrupt invasion of their personal space. Constantino didn't so much as twitch. "Little chance of this ending well for some time," he purred, eagerness thick in his voice and his stare.

"I wanna see my boys," Johnston snapped. "Now."

Constantino smiled.

 

**Chapter Eight:   
"My Deputy Says It Isn't A Good Day."**

**New Bern Town Hall, Prison Tract**

Eric Green couldn't remember ever having been in this much pain. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt. _Blinking_ hurt. His head was ringing with the echo of the questions they'd asked him, the same shouts, over and over again. They'd stopped it with the electro shocks, for which he was immensely grateful, but they'd never ceased to slap him around and holler at him.

Before this, the only person who'd ever yelled at him on a semi-regular basis had been Jake, and that had been kind of a brotherly privilege. Eric had talked right back, safe in the absolute certainty that even if they progressed beyond words, his older brother always pulled his punches... even if it meant he'd be the one who ended up with his face in the dirt at the end of most of their scuffles, especially after Eric had outgrown him.

Except for the occasional boyhood brawl with Jake though, Eric hadn't experienced a lot of physical violence in his life. He was numbly amazed at how he was starting to get used to it. The beatings actually seemed to help him deal with the emotional pain of losing April and their unborn child, the disappointment he'd been to his parents. Getting the crap beaten out of him was proving to be almost therapeutic. Who would've thought?

Still, he could've done without the throbbing, stinging, tearing, pulsing, freaking _humming_ aches all the time, everywhere. The brief journey back to the cell felt like a week-long hike. Didn't help that he had to breathe carefully in order to avoid sucking in blood through his nose. Blood, he'd discovered, didn't taste any better in large quantities. Neither did defeat, so somewhere between the modified cattle prod and the brass knuckles he'd learned not to acknowledge either.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been gone, but Jake was there and wide awake when they tossed Eric through the door and slammed it shut behind him. Jake tried to break Eric's fall and failed, which didn't keep him from being all over Eric the second he could get a good grip on him. Then he pushed and pulled, digging into Eric's jacket to get him up, get him to an unoccupied cot in the corner, and sit him down. He didn't join Eric on the mattress though, kneeling before him instead as if he simply didn't have the strength to get to his feet.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded, eyes wide and scared, glancing down to Eric's... crotch? Then searching Eric's face for... something. He looked strangely young; his skin ashen but unmarked, his fingers shaking where they rested on Eric's knee. His black-and-blue knee. Ow.

"I didn't tell them anything," Eric declared, immensely proud of himself. He'd always wondered if he'd crack under pressure, unsure whether he possessed the same strong, stubborn spirit that made his father and brother such formidable men and impossible role models. Apparently, he did. It was enough to make Eric feel high. Well, like he imagined it must be to feel high, because he'd never actually touched drugs.

Something shifted in Jake's demeanor. He looked away, unable to meet Eric's gaze, voice colored with something that might've been shame... or relief. "Maggie gave them Hawkins."

Huh. Maggie? Who the hell was- Oh. _Maggie_. Eric had thought he'd seen a somewhat familiar face hovering behind Jake when he'd been dragged off in the middle of the night. So she'd made it to New Bern, had she? Pity. Eric usually tried not to be vindictive, but the bitch had been directly responsible for Jake getting knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun. He could've died or ended up with brain damage. Hardheaded or not, even Eric's big brother could only take so many lickings before he'd stop ticking, and Eric might not always have _liked_ Jake, but he loved him unconditionally.

Now what did Maggie giving up Hawkins have to do with their current–

Eric frowned in irritation. "It's not about Hawkins." Only because _Jake_ was completely fixated on Mr. "I Used To Be A Cop In St. Louis" didn't mean everybody else was, too.

Jake seemed genuinely confused by Eric's denial of Hawkins' importance. Eric realized they truly hadn't asked his sibling the same questions as him. It made no sense, like it made no sense that they'd treated Eric like a punching bag but apparently hadn't so much as accidentally stepped on Jake's toes – except they must've done _something_ to him, because this was not the proud, self-confident version of his brother Eric knew. Jake looked shaken, like he was barely holding it together, Eric noticed belatedly. It made him uneasy, but he didn't have the strength left to grill Jake about it.

"They wanna know about Jericho," he finally explained. He felt a bit guilty for not asking how Jake's night had been, but he'd been beaten to within an inch of his life and Jake seemed physically fine. It could wait. "What our defenses are like. Do we have any troops? Where are they posted? Do we have a stockpile of weapons?"

Jake looked stricken, like he should've known, should've thought of that, but just hadn't. That, too, was out of character, but he got over it quickly, snapped back to some semblance of his usual take-charge persona. "We have to get back. We have to warn them."

It sounded almost right, except there was a tremor in his voice, a distant kind of terror in his eyes that made Eric reel with a surge of unprecedented protectiveness towards his older brother. "We will," he assured Jake, surprised how good it felt to be the confident one for a change. "We're not gonna die in here," he promised.

_See, Jake? I can hack it after all. I'm not giving up._

He must've sounded convincing, because when Jake pulled himself together this time, he looked much steadier than before. He gave a decisive nod, patted Eric's arm – his bruised arm... _ow_ – and got up to scan the corridor through the bars. And if the stiff line of his back seemed a bit like a protective wall between them... well... Eric was just too exhausted to care.

 

**New Bern**

Ted Lewis was seriously starting to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. He liked Heather, had had a major crush on her ever since high school, but he wasn't sure getting into her good graces was worth all of this. In his wildest dreams he'd never have thought that one day he'd be crouched behind the blackened hulk of a burned out car in an alley across New Bern's town hall with a shifty-eyed lady and a psychopath. Talking about blowing shit up and killing people, no less.

He'd thought Maggie might be a reasonable person when he'd first seen her cower before Hawkins, who was the scariest son-of-a-bitch Ted had ever met, bar none. Unfortunately, she'd acclimated with unhealthy ease and appeared mostly unfazed by Hawkins' plans of destruction now. Hell, it was her fault Hawkins decided to upgrade Ted from driver to shooter and she clearly wasn't concerned about any ethical problems Ted might've had with putting a bullet into someone he knew.

"Someone's gotta be on those guards while I get Jake and Eric out," she explained, as if that made everything all right.

Before Ted could voice any objections, Hawkins fixed those disturbingly opaque eyes on him and handed over one of the rifles. "Cover them until I get back," he ordered. "And if need be, take out the sniper first."

The sniper. That would be Owen Greenberg, former star wide receiver, infamous for once snarfing half a bottle of pop through his nose on a bet. He'd always been a good shot, had won some competitions even, but he wasn't snooty about it. It was just something he could do well, and apparently Sheriff-Mayor Constantino had known that and thus positioned him on the roof of the town hall and consequently in Hawkins' – now Ted's – crosshairs. Owen had never been a friend of Ted's, but he was an okay guy. He didn't deserve to be shot like a squirrel.

Staring at the rifle in his hands with revulsion, Ted muttered bitterly, "Five months ago, you know what I was doing?" Maggie looked at him questioningly. Hawkins was too busy sighting down on poor unsuspecting Owen Greenberg to give any indication he'd heard or cared. Ted shrugged helplessly, the weapon like a millstone in his lap. "Customizing my truck."

Maggie chuckled then glanced over her shoulder at the busy town plaza. "I was getting ready to defend my dissertation." That was hard to imagine. Maggie didn't look like an academic; she was too hardened, too hands-on. What the hell had been her field of study? She must've seen the skepticism on his face, because she elaborated with a cynical smile. "Russian lit."

Oh, awesome. He was getting ready to play Butch and Sundance with a reformed egghead.

Oblivious – and evidently getting carried away by some manic sense of pre-slaughter camaraderie – Maggie turned to Hawkins. "What about you? What were you doing last time things were normal?"

Ted half expected Hawkins to ignore her, but Jake's pet killer actually seemed amused by the inquiry. "I can't remember back that far," he admitted.

Now _that_ Ted had no trouble believing.

"Is everybody ready?" Hawkins asked, which must've been his way of announcing that play time was over.

Ted stared down at the rifle. No. No, he wasn't ready. He didn't want to snuff out a life; hell, he didn't want to sit in the dirt and listen to Maggie the Homicidal Geek suck up to Hawkins the Homicidal Commando. He wanted to go back to his trailer and pull the blankets over his head until the world made sense again.

"How will we know when you're finished over there?" Maggie said.

The _hush-click_ of Hawkins working the slide on his rifle could've been funny, overkill. It being Hawkins' fingers on the gun, the sound got to Ted like the screech of fingernails over a blackboard. "You'll know," Hawkins promised.

Ted didn't doubt that for a second.

 

**New Bern Town Hall**

Johnston should've known Constantino wasn't going to play ball when the man refused to go straight back to New Bern. No, he had to detour to the cabin first, to "tie up a few loose ends", while Johnston and Russell waited by the bridge and Johnston's blood pressure rose to unhealthy levels. Only then did Constantino deign to join them in the squad car... which took the scenic route to town, because Constantino insisted on showing them the sad state of New Bern's farming community. Johnston might've been more sympathetic if he hadn't been on the verge of committing murder by then.

Apparently, Constantino still possessed some people reading skills, because he was out of the car the moment it stopped at the checkpoint by the town hall, heading quickly towards one of his deputies who was waiting for him on the steps of the building.

Johnston and Russell followed more slowly. Russell offered to wait; he seemed a bit lost, like a man who could see doors about to slam shut on all sides and was unsure which one to choose because he knew he'd be locked in once he entered. He was a good guy, had been a loyal friend to Jake from the get-go, but that was only part of why Johnston offered him sanctuary in Jericho. Russell had a whole network of connections to the outside world and he had Jonah Prowse's gift for traveling dangerous roads without being tainted by Prowse's mercenary nature. Truth was Johnston didn't primarily care what a decent _person_ Russell was. Russell was an _asset_, and Johnston would've rather had him on his side in the coming confrontation.

The issue, as it turned out, was academic. Russell declined the invitation. He did it regretfully, almost reluctantly, because he had family in New Bern and because he still hadn't given up on his town, but Johnston didn't think it had been much of a contest after all. In the end, it wasn't so much about who was right and who was wrong; it was a matter of loyalty. Jake wouldn't have deserted Jericho for something that hadn't happened yet; Russell couldn't desert New Bern. Johnston respected that, even as he regretted the decision. He knew the next time he saw Russell might well be over the barrel of a gun.

Even though Russell had to know this, he still hurried after Johnston when Johnston turned to leave and stopped him. "If you get in a bad situation," he said with quiet intensity, "go to the railroad tracks and go east. This will take you to Route 70 and skip the checkpoint."

Johnston took his advice for what it was: a parting gift. They shook hands solemnly, neither of them happy with the situation, neither able to prevent what they knew was coming. "Thank you, Russell."

Russell watched him go forlornly. Johnston barely caught a whispered, "Good luck", before the man turned away as well and left.

Focused solely on getting to his boys now, Johnston took the remaining steps and walked through the open mesh-wire gates towards the town hall. He was prepared for trouble, but his jaw muscle still twitched when Constantino stepped into his path. "We're gonna have to do this another time," Constantino told him, and the bastard didn't even have to decency to try and sound apologetic.

Johnston's eyes narrowed. "What?"

The faintest hint of a smirk pulled at the edges of Constantino's mouth, almost but not quite hidden by his carefully groomed beard. "My deputy says it isn't a good day." The smirk grew into a smile. "You can come back tomorrow."

He was pushing, no longer testing the waters but really pushing now, a rangy alpha wolf baring his fangs at his grizzled counterpart. It wasn't the kind of challenge Johnston could deflect; not when the prize in this inane tug-of-war was Eric and Jake. "I'm not leaving until I see my sons, Phil."

Constantino all but bounced on the balls of his feet, scenting blood, mistaking Johnston's appeal for weakness when it really was a last ditch effort to prevent the inevitable. There was something in his gaze that Johnston didn't like at all; a disturbingly triumphant little "I know something that you don't" that he didn't vocalize. He didn't need to; seeing it, seeing how giddy it made Constantino, was enough to throw Johnston somewhat off balance.

"I'll tell you what," Constantino offered, mock-generously. "You bring back all of my citizens who were shot in Jericho last night, and I'll give you fifteen minutes with your sons."

It wasn't an offer he could accept and keep face; Johnston knew it and Constantino knew it as well. It wasn't an offer he could accept at all, because he didn't have the authority anymore. Gray Anderson did, and he wouldn't sanction a deal like this – Johnston wouldn't have in his place.

"You don't wanna do this," Johnston said quietly. It wasn't a denial. It was a warning, and even though Constantino didn't seem to get it (or care), his deputy did and stepped in immediately.

"Let's go, Mr. Green."

Johnston glanced at the balding, rat-faced underling and immediately dismissed him, glaring at Constantino instead. "What's this?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the deputy's face flush just a little, angry and humiliated. He kept his cool though, professional in a way that made it clear he'd been a cop for a while, not one of Constantino's recent acquisitions. "We're gonna escort you back to the checkpoint." Footsteps behind him told Johnston the guard at the gate was getting ready to intervene. He tensed, weighing the odds. Constantino's lackey – his name tag said "Perkins" – leaned forward, voice quiet, polite, and relentless. "Get in the car, please, Mr. Green."

The odds sucked. Never one to sacrifice dignity for useless emotional displays, Johnston Green turned on his heels and walked away without another word.

 

**Chapter Nine:   
"Let Him Go!"**

**New Bern, Factory Site**

Hawkins hadn't expected to have any trouble getting to the factory loading docks and he didn't. A refreshing combination of incompetence and inexperience on the part of Constantino's men made circumventing the sentries and locating his target area a child's play. They had no idea who they were dealing with, knew nothing but his name – Jake had made sure of that. Of course, all this wouldn't have been _necessary_ if Jake hadn't let himself be caught in the first place, the stupid fucker. Hawkins was going to kill his ass the moment he had him out of danger. And if Jake dared to get hurt, he'd kill his ass and then resuscitate him so he could strangle him _again_.

Until then he'd have to content himself with blowing up stuff and antagonizing people.

He started with the truck driver. Obviously, the man didn't have much time to be antagonized, seeing as Hawkins put a bullet through his head before he knew what was coming, but it was the thought that counted. Hawkins wasn't quite at a point yet where he enjoyed killing, but years among terrorists had deadened him to a degree that made it a chore rather than a trauma. He unscrewed the silencer and tucked it away, pushed the body to the floorboards, and settled in the driver's seat, wondering absently if Darcy could possibly sense this shift and if maybe that was one of the reasons she refused to go back to where they'd once been.

They'd been different people when they'd married. They'd changed a lot since, both of them; he had more in common with Jake now than with his own wife. He figured something like that was probably a widespread problem among couples that had married too young... well, minus the black ops induced separations and the ethical issues involved. After he was done killing Jake, maybe he could sit down and have a talk with Eric.

The workers finished loading the truck with mortar shells. He could hear them close the tailboard then a double-tap to the rear of the vehicle signaled that he was good to go. He drove away calmly. Running attracts attention and so does a munitions truck that peels out of its lot with undue haste. As it was, nobody noticed anything amiss. No alarm sounded, no calls rang out, nobody even looked at him twice. It was like taking candy from a baby.

Hawkins didn't go far. He didn't bother to leave the factory site, just found himself a nice, quiet spot behind an empty storage building and parked there. He glanced at his watch. Maggie was due another traitor attack about now. She should be on her knees wringing her hands at the guards and wailing about Hawkins' evil intentions. _If_ she was coming through for them. He didn't like using a girl like her, one who tended to look out for number one only, but then his plan didn't hinge on her trustworthiness. If Maggie decided to switch sides, let her – she didn't know anything that could help Constantino stop Hawkins.

She was a pawn; when it came down to it, she was expendable.

 

**New Bern Town Hall, Prison Tract**

They'd slapped Maggie around and might've broken her nose, but all in all, she thought she'd done rather well. Her performance had been outstanding; she knew that for sure, because she'd been playing a tough room and failure to convince would've meant a lot worse than a few bruises and a grope or two. She'd even managed to lure in Constantino and arouse enough of his curiosity to make him come watch as they wrangled her into an empty cell. Good; the more time he spent with her, the less opportunity for him to interrogate Jake.

She spun a good yarn, mostly because she didn't have to fake her near-hysterical desperation. If she screwed up this scam, she wouldn't get the boot, she'd be executed. Constantino didn't buy it anyway. "You expect me to believe he wired a government building under 24-hour armed surveillance?"

Well, no, though she wouldn't have put it past Hawkins – the man scared the crap outta her. Constantino talked the talk, but Hawkins walked the walk. If in doubt, she'd rather stand behind him than Constantino.

The deputy charged with putting her in her cell was getting annoyed and leaned against her shoulders, shoving at her like at a fractious mule. Maggie flailed, wriggled, and snatched his key ring while Constantino was busy sneering and the guard was distracted by her fussing. When he finally succeeded in pushing her in, she didn't try to get out again, the keys safe in her pockets and no one the wiser.

"I'm just telling you what he told me," she persisted. It was the truth, but it made no difference. Constantino rolled his eyes and started to walk away. She thought of Jake, strapped down in a room somewhere to be broken by those big, cruel fists, and paced alongside him as far as she could, stalling, stalling, stalling. "I'm trying to help you so you'll let me stay as a citizen." He ignored her. Maggie's voice rose into a scream. "Please, don't lock me in here!"

That got his attention. He turned on her so quickly she nearly squeaked like a cornered rodent. Damn it, the man was one big fucker. Vicious, too. "You think I've forgotten how quickly you turned on your own friends when we first brought you in here?" he snarled. "I don't believe a word that comes out of your mouth."

That was harsh, Maggie thought. Warranted, too, but he was hurting her feelings there. She gave him her best stricken eyes. It was a wasted effort, because Constantino stalked off before he could appreciate the "con-woman caught" pout, but she saw one of the deputies smirk as he followed his master so she figured it was okay. Let them be all morally superior.

Maggie had what she'd come for.

 

**New Bern, Factory Site**

Hawkins was reasonably certain Constantino hadn't gotten any smarter overnight and decided to post guards inside the trucks, but he still led with his gun when he opened the cargo hold. One second, two seconds, three seconds... clear. He holstered the weapon and climbed in to check out the goods.

Unsurprisingly, the truck was loaded with ammunition. Six crates total, each containing thirty mortar shells. That made a hundred and eighty per truck – what the hell did Constantino plan to do? Bomb Jericho completely off the map? Might make it easier to take over, but it was pretty cold for a little farmer king. Then again, he'd already noticed Kansas seemed to breed them tough.

He liberated two of the shells for his immediate purpose, hopped down to the ground, and pulled the tailboard shut behind him. The shells went into the engine compartment; nose first so they'd go off on first impact. He closed the hood carefully even though normally it should take more than that to detonate these babies. They were homemade though, and so far Constantino's people hadn't exactly wowed him with their aptitude.

He was about to get back into the driver's cab when temptation whispered in his mind. He hesitated. This hadn't been the original plan, but improvisation didn't need to be a bad thing. Decision made, he went back again and pulled a few more mortar shells out of their racks. He had to move a couple of guns to make room in his bag, but the shells weren't too heavy. Not exactly lightweight either, but what the hell. If he got tired, he'd just make Jake haul the loot.

 

**New Bern Town Hall, Prison Tract**

The drug, whatever it had been, was starting to kick in.

Jake cursed quietly. He'd been afraid of this. The timing sucked; they'd taken Eric away again and there was something in the air he didn't like, a sweltry pressure that kept the whole prison tract on edge. Perkins was at the center of it. He'd given Jake an anticipatory stare when he'd come to watch his cronies fetch the younger Green brother. Jake suspected he was about to receive the overdue payback for letting Hawkins terrorize Perkins at Ted's trailer.

He couldn't afford to lose his focus. For Eric's sake he had to stay sharp, think, be able to react quickly. But when he strained to see what was going on outside, he got dizzy and had to sit down on the cot before he fell. The mattress was stained with blood. Eric's blood, he thought, and had to fight down a sudden bout of nausea. His limbs were starting to feel heavy and loose as he sat leaning against the wall. He hated to admit it, but it was kinda nice. He'd been strung tight and skittish ever since the cabin, the muscles in his shoulders and back knotted with tension, hands trembling with nerves when he didn't concentrate on keeping them steady. He'd ached, the sort of low-key discomfort that faded into the background but was always there, white noise that ebbed and swelled with every beat of his heart.

It was both better and worse now, like the difference between breaking an arm and breaking a leg. The hectic flutter of his pulse slowed down as his body was chemically forced to relax, but the fear was still there, a roiling, twisting beast that gained power with every shallow, unsteady breath he took. It was muted, kept behind a gooey wall of artificial lassitude, but it was like locking a deep-sea behemoth into a fish tank. Sooner or later, it was going to break free and roll him under.

He was absurdly grateful the drug hadn't hit him at the cabin. The loss of control had been bad enough as it was, he didn't know how he'd have dealt with the additional stress of this sneaking capitulation of his body and mind. He hated to admit it, but between the dizziness, the increasing sense of disconnection, and the sweet, lazy arousal that was licking at his insides, he'd have been putty in Constantino's hands.

* * *

By the time one of Perkins' men came to collect him as well, Jake had little fight left in him. Somehow, he managed to get to his feet and walk most of the way under his own power, but he couldn't even tell which way they were going, much less contemplate resistance. His wrists were cuffed behind his back once more, which fucked up his already iffy sense of balance, and he almost fell flat on his face when the deputy pushed him through the door of yet another interrogation room. Perkins was there, and Mike, whose presence distracted Jake so badly he only belatedly noticed his brother.

Eric looked like... well, not much worse than he'd looked before, to be honest. His right eye was going to swell shut if it wasn't treated soon and the cut on his lip had reopened, but all things considered he appeared a lot more lucid than Jake felt. Not that that was saying much.

The deputy all but tossed Jake down into the empty chair across the table from Eric. Mike's big paw came to rest on Jake's shoulder and was about the only thing that kept him from sliding right back off. The floor, dirty and disgusting as it was, was calling, not least because unlike the rest of the room it wasn't spinning slowly around Jake. Could a person get seasick on land? And if the answer was yes, could anyone blame him if he tossed his cookies all over Deputy Mike? Wasn't like good old Mikey hadn't already seen him choke.

Eric took one look at Jake and immediately turned to Perkins. "Get him out of here."

His distress helped Jake regain some measure of clarity, though it was hard to be suitably cowed by Perkins after his little _tête-à-tête_ with Phil Constantino and Mike. "What is this?" he scoffed, propping himself up awkwardly with his bound hands and giving Perkins an unimpressed look. "Come on, you already know everything. What do you want from _us_?"

Judging from Eric's frightened expression, Eric had a pretty good idea about that.

Perkins for his part paced along the wall, one hand rubbing at his neck. It made Jake wonder whether Constantino knew what was going on. "I already told you everything I know," he repeated, just in case.

"Maybe so." Perkins pointed at Eric. "But maybe your brother will be a little more... more forthcoming... if he thinks it'll save your life."

The next thing Jake knew, the man behind him – was that still Mike? – grabbed a handful of his hair and forced his head back, baring his throat, and then the cold whisper of something very sharp brushed against his skin. Oh. So that was how it was going to be. He should've been more alarmed about his situation, but his pulse barely sped up. Might've been the drugs, but really, Jake hadn't been afraid of dying in a while. In his experience, living was harder.

However, Eric didn't share his fatalistic approach towards death. His little brother threw himself forward in complete disregard of the two deputies flanking him and the cuffs around his own wrists. "Let him go!"

The knife only pressed closer. The pressure made Jake grunt, but he didn't struggle. There was no use, and anyway, this wasn't so bad. Not quite the blaze of glory he'd imagined, but on the other hand – he had his clothes back, damn good drugs to cushion the pain, Hawkins out there to take care of his family and Jericho, and his brother with him. Yelling. Loudly.

"_Let him go!_"

 

**New Bern, Factory Site**

Hawkins drove back to the loading docks like a soccer mom with half a dozen babies in the backseat. That was to say, slowly and carefully. You'd think a guy would get used to carting around bombs, but no. They still freaked him out. These mortar shells more than the nuclear device he'd lugged cross-country, because you could bounce the nuke down a hillside and it wouldn't even hiccup, whereas he wasn't sure how stable self-made mortar shells were.

He stopped the truck at what he considered a safe distance from the busiest dock. Got out. Checked the angle. Marveled at the complete lack of interest his activities provoked. Ducked back into the cab to rig the gas pedal and steering wheel. Did the math again.

This was _not_ going to be pretty.

 

**New Bern Town Hall, Prison Tract**

Eric was losing it. Was losing it big time, struggling, bucking, bleeding. "Let him go!" he screamed, hoarse with horror and rage, "Let him go!"

He'd thought they couldn't scare him anymore. He'd convinced himself that whatever they threw at him would just kill him or make him stronger, but the sight of his big brother arched gracelessly in the deputy's arms filled him with such a maelstrom of emotion he thought he'd burst. He couldn't even tell whether it was the actual threat to Jake's life that threw him into such a panic or the fact that Jake's dark eyes looked almost peaceful, totally accepting of the sharp edge of a switchblade that rested against the tender skin of his throat. Jake was okay with it. Jake really thought dying was fine as long as he was the one doing it.

"Eric," Jake said, more of that terrible calm in his voice. "_Eric_."

But Eric didn't want to hear it. Jake wasn't rational; he wasn't going to argue with Jake. "Let him go!" he howled, frantic. He surged up until he was standing, was wrestled down again by the sweating, cursing deputies. Perkins kept trying to ask his stupid fucking questions, but Eric was beyond listening. "Let him go! Let him _go_!"

"Eric!" Jake called, and Eric glanced at him, but Jake still didn't appear too concerned with his own survival, so Eric chose to ignore him.

"Tell me now!" Perkins demanded just then and slammed his hands flat on the table.

Perversely, it was that sound, so sudden it made them all jump a little, that got Eric to hastily look back at his brother, afraid the deputy might've accidentally cut Jake's jugular when he'd startled. He hadn't, but Jake used the opportunity to catch Eric's gaze and hold it. "Eric, look at me," he ordered, sure and unfazed and so goddamn vulnerable Eric nearly started to bawl. "Don't tell him anything."

"How many spies have you sent?" raged Perkins, in Eric's face but unable to draw Eric's attention, which was completely centered on Jake now. On Jake's fearless eyes. On the knife that threatened Jake's precious life.

"Tell us or we slice his throat!"

 

**New Bern, Factory Site**

Not so long ago, bombs had gone off all over the United States, and yet nobody was looking twice at a truck idling right in front of a munitions factory and a stranger fiddling around under the seat. Hawkins was starting to think he wasn't about to commit multiple murder but assist natural selection. These people were a Darwin award waiting to happen.

He shook his head in disbelief and set the heavy toolbox down on the gas pedal. The engine howled. Hawkins eyeballed the workers at the loading dock. No reaction. Fine. He engaged the gear and jumped back as the truck leaped forward.

Turned out he'd been wrong; the fireball _was_ kinda pretty.

 

**Chapter Ten:   
"Everybody, Go!"**

As the better part of New Bern's secret munitions factory went up in fire and smoke, several things happened.

In the interrogation room, Deputy Perkins jumped and damn near shat his pants. Deputy Michael Keane dug his fingers harder into Jake Green's mop of silky hair, so transfixed by the soft caresses of Jake's steady breaths against the back of his hand he barely registered the noise. Eric once again checked Jake's throat for damage. Jake's body, conditioned by too much time spent in too many war zones, reacted to the all too familiar sound of a detonation by pumping a shitload of adrenaline into his system that temporarily overruled the effects of the drug he'd been given.

At the checkpoint across town, chaos broke out. Johnston Green, about to start his long walk home, looked left, looked right, realized nobody was paying him any heed, and blithely stole the first car in his sight, which happened to be Russell's sturdy yellow work truck. Russell – through negligence or foresight – had left the keys in the ignition. Johnston was on his way back to the town center before the rumbles of the initial blast had faded. After all, he reasoned, if there was an explosion, Jake had to be involved _somehow_.

On the square in front of the town hall, people started running. Civilians were all but kicked out the gate. Most of the deputies standing guard and manning the checkpoint grabbed their weapons and raced off towards the source of the disruption.

In the alley across the town hall, Ted Lewis watched the confusion through the scope of Hawkins's rifle, but all he could see was a younger version of Owen Greenberg snarfing pop through his nose.

* * *

Clarity was a beautiful thing, even in the somewhat fragmented form Jake was currently experiencing. He was still suffering a bit of a head rush from the sudden adrenaline dump when Constantino popped into the interrogation room and ordered that Jake and Eric be moved to the warehouse. It kept him from mouthing off, but that didn't mean he had any intention of going quietly. An explosion at the factory – sounded like Hawkins had been busy.

"Get them outside," Perkins ordered, grabbing his jacket. "I'm gonna check the cells then bring the car around."

Jake and Eric were uncuffed so they'd be able to move faster. Mike grabbed Eric, another deputy took Jake, and off they went, ushered through the maze of basement corridors and up the stairs to the lobby. No people were on the plaza this time except for a solitary deputy at the guard booth and a sniper on top of the containers set up around the town square. Experience told Jake a second sniper was probably positioned on the balcony of the town hall itself.

The brothers were led down the steps at a near run. Jake had to concentrate to make sure he didn't slip, because even though he could barely feel the effects of the drug at the moment, he didn't quite trust his body yet. Even preoccupied as he was though, he knew this was the best chance for an ambush Hawkins might get. Consequently, he barely twitched when a shot rang out from the direction of the gate.

Hawkins. Fucking _finally_.

Jake looked up instinctively to check whether the bullet had hit its target. It must have, because the balcony was empty. Only then did Jake whirl around to see Robert Hawkins charge at them like a one-man army. The guard at the gate jerked and dropped like a stone, half his face gone.

"Jake!" Hawkins yelled.

Oh. Yeah. Better get moving. Torn from his short-lived stupor, Jake immediately spun around to hammer the deputy behind him with his elbow. He'd hoped to break the man's nose and stun him, but only caught his temple. It was enough to make the deputy let go and fall down to his knees. Realizing the madman racing towards him was the bigger threat than an unarmed prisoner, the deputy twisted out of Jake's reach and pulled his gun. He barely had time to bring it up. Hawkins shot him in the head and kept coming.

Jake ducked down, snatched up the dead man's gun, and took aim at Mike. However, the goddamn bastard had a good grip on Eric and was pulling Jake's brother up to full height, the better to use him as a shield. Neither Jake nor Hawkins could get a clean shot, and then a rain of bullets came down on them from the balcony and the top of the containers. Fuck. Looked like the sniper was wearing a bulletproof vest. He wasn't bad at his job either, because even rattled and with his rifle set to automatic fire he managed to hit Hawkins. Hawkins yelled, almost fell, but caught himself in an awkward roll and dove for cover behind the edge of the guard booth.

Watching his friend go down in a spray of blood kicked Jake into emergency overdrive. He couldn't get a bead on the sniper, but from his new position behind a sand-filled barrel he could get Mike... and he did, nailing him in the hip. Eric ducked away the second he felt the big man's grasp slip and Jake didn't hesitate to finish what he'd started. Mike's head snapped back as the bullet slammed into his forehead. It made Jake wish Constantino had been there.

"Get down!" he yelled at Eric when Eric didn't move fast enough for Jake's taste.

Eric didn't need to be told twice. Unfortunately, the bellow also attracted the sniper's attention where the gunfire hadn't. The barrel didn't offer enough protection against the resulting volley, so Jake sprinted across the square after Eric. Eric jumped over the brick wall of the winter-dry fountain in the middle of the plaza and belly-flopped to the ground. Jake, realizing there wasn't enough room for both of them, dove into the basin and crouched behind the metal fountain ornament. He could hear the _ka-chack_ of a weapon being cocked from behind the wall and felt a flare of pride for Eric, who must've had the presence of mind to grab Mike's gun even under fire. His little brother had come a long way from the prissy goody-goody he'd used to be.

A bullet hit the fountain ornament close to Jake's face. Splinters sliced through the air like shrapnel, causing him to duck his head and squeeze his eyes shut hastily. He could hear Hawkins growl an expletive then move; when he looked, Hawkins had popped out from behind the corner of the guard booth and was shooting at the sniper, drawing his fire.

It gave Jake the chance to make sure his limbs were tucked out of sight and to check on Eric. "You okay?" he called.

Eric's reply was a bit breathless, but remarkably cheerful under the circumstances. "Good."

They were taking fire from three sides now. Jake was peripherally aware that the guard on top of the containers was getting closer, but he was too distracted by the one shooting at him from ground level to be able to do anything about it. He didn't realize how much danger he was in until a shrill scream from the steps alerted him to the threat.

"Jake! Look out!"

The guard who'd given Jake so much grief startled at the sound of Maggie's voice. He whirled around to face her, finger still squeezing the trigger, and hit Maggie almost by accident. She fell without a sound, looking stunned.

Jake didn't think about it; he just stood up, pivoted around the fountain ornament, and killed the man who'd shot Maggie with a single bullet. The deputy on top of the containers immediately used the opportunity to take potshots at Jake, forcing him back, but not before Jake saw Maggie drag herself across the stairs, trying to crawl to safety. She was leaving bloody smears on the brushed sandstone, but she was alive.

One shooter down, but the remaining two had the high ground. They didn't behave like they were about to run out of ammo any time soon either. Jake cussed quietly, his mind racing to find a way to get them out of this fix. They needed a distraction, something to give them an edge, or they'd be pinned down until Constantino and his men came back and finished them off.

He might've been contemplating a borderline suicidal option or two when the squeal of tires and the howl of a powerful engine announced the arrival of a new player. Shit. As far as Jake was aware, all his allies were currently stuck in the same quandary as he was, so who the devil-

"Jake! Eric! Over here!"

Jake would've recognized that military bark anywhere. There had been a time when the first hint of it had made him want to crawl out of his skin, it had driven him so mad. Now he couldn't think of any voice he'd rather hear. He craned his head until he could see his father wave at him from behind a painfully yellow truck.

The deputies started firing at the oldest Green and forced him to duck back into the car. Jake's heart rate kicked up another notch. Hawkins, as if in direct response, leaned around the corner of the booth yet again and took out the sniper on the balcony with a single, awesome shot. This time, the vest couldn't save the man – Jake saw the upper half of his skull explode.

Deed done, Hawkins pulled back just long enough to regroup then he roared, "Everybody, go!", and moved out. Jake and Eric followed his example. Eric proved that he hadn't won all those track-and-field competitions for nothing and was halfway across the plaza before the remaining deputy could draw a bead on him. Hawkins had stopped and was standing tall, laying down covering fire for the brothers.

Jake came out of the fountain smoothly, firing steadily as well as he made a beeline for Maggie. She saw him coming and got up, stumbled towards him. The look on her face said she couldn't believe he was really coming for her. Jake grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along, distantly grateful she was too tough to cry and give up. He couldn't have carried her.

Hawkins, looking irate, kept covering them. His right arm was bloody, so he was shooting with his left, Jake saw as he passed him. He hadn't known Hawkins was ambidextrous, but he sure was impressed.

Maggie did squeal after all when Jake tossed her over the side panel into the truck bed, but Jake didn't have time to apologize. Hawkins had finally abandoned his position and was running towards them, bullets slamming into the flagstones all around him. "Hurry!" Jake yelled, scared that Hawkins might get hit just as it looked like they were home free.

Hawkins took a running leap into the truck bed and came up firing. The brothers kept shooting as well, Jake kneeling on the back fender, Eric clinging to the running board on the far side of the truck. Their father peeled away from the curb so fast Jake smelled burnt rubber.

* * *

They followed the train tracks going east, bouncing over sticks and stones until Maggie passed out and Eric, who had a tendency to get car-sick even on smooth tarmac, barfed over the side. Wasn't much in him to come up, but the yakking sounded pitiful nevertheless. Jake and Hawkins shared a dismayed glance then tried very hard not to listen. They'd positioned themselves in the corners of the truck bed with their guns out, safety engaged so they wouldn't accidentally pull the trigger and alert someone to their passing. They stayed vigilant, keeping an eye out for pursuers, but the buildings along the tracks seemed abandoned and the alleys they passed were deserted.

Jake clung to his waning adrenaline high until they crossed the town limits and turned onto an overgrown dirt road that looped around New Bern. He'd hoped against all hope that the worst was over and he'd be able to make it home without anybody being the wiser, but a wave of dizziness crushed that illusion real fast. Damn it. He could feel the sluggishness creep back into his limbs, this time accompanied by tiny muscle tremors and the headache from hell. He tucked away his gun, afraid he'd drop it, and leaned heavily against the side panel of the truck.

Now that Eric wasn't being tortured and they weren't fighting for their lives anymore, Jake was paying for everything he and others had done to his body in the past thirty hours or so. It wasn't only the drug, though that was bad enough, sapping his strength and sensitizing his skin until even the casual slide of fabric made him shiver. He felt bruised, inside and out, stretched beyond capacity. Used and abused and somehow _diminished_. The worst thing was, he was certain this was precisely what Constantino wanted him to feel, and the knowledge that he was playing his enemy's game infuriated him.

He could sense Hawkins' eyes on him more than once, but couldn't find the strength to return the stare. It was a long way back to Jericho, especially using farm- and fire roads, and Jake had no idea if he could make it without betraying his weakness. He'd have to, he thought. If Eric or his father found out he'd been drugged, they'd cross-examine him until they knew the exact circumstances. Then Eric would pity him and his father would feel guilty and disgusted, and neither of them would ever look at him the same way again. He could deal with the physical and emotional repercussions of being violated, but not with that. They'd only recently started to see something good in him, something to be proud of, maybe. He knew he probably didn't deserve it, but he wanted to keep their regard... and their respect. He didn't dare let them see he'd failed, had submitted to Constantino. It didn't matter he'd done it for Eric. They wouldn't take it well.

So Jake gritted his teeth and rode out the effects of the drug to the best of his ability, face and body turned away from the others under the pretense of keeping watch over the side of the truck. He didn't think he was fooling Hawkins, but his father was driving and Eric was busy giving first aid to Maggie, who'd taken two bullets to the leg and was bleeding profusely. It kept them occupied. Probably not a nice thing to think, but Jake had never been a particularly nice person.

The truck ran out of gas in the middle of the woods about twelve miles from Jericho. Jake unlatched his side of the tailgate with shaking hands and slid to the ground bonelessly. Only willpower and his iron grip on the truck kept him standing. Vertigo and jellified muscles made every movement an adventure and he could've kissed Hawkins when the man took command, distracting the others by giving them tasks that kept them away from Jake.

Of course that meant that as soon as Jake's father was checking the field dressings on Maggie's leg and Eric was limping away with Hawkins' knife to cut off branches and camouflage the car, Hawkins could focus all his attention on Jake. And there he stood, dark and grim, staring at Jake like he couldn't decide whether to throttle him or hug him. To Jake's relief, he did neither. "What's wrong?" he asked instead, voice carefully pitched so it wouldn't carry.

Jake appreciated the consideration, but he still glanced at his father nervously. "Got drugged," he admitted reluctantly. He would've preferred not to involve Hawkins, but he couldn't make it on his own and he couldn't trust anybody else with this.

Hawkins nodded. "Yeah, thought it was something like that. How bad?"

"Bad enough." Jake rubbed his face, so woozy he was starting to see double.

"Can you make it back to Jericho?" Hawkins inquired, sounding doubtful even as he asked the question. He was flexing his wounded arm. Knowing him, he was probably trying to gauge whether he'd be able to carry Jake if necessary.

Jake would've liked to lie, but he and Hawkins had a pact about that and as long as Hawkins honored it, Jake could do no less. "I might make it to Stanley's place," he offered, though he wasn't at all sure about that. The Richmond farm seemed awfully far. He cleared his throat. "Hawkins... I don't want my father or Eric to know, okay?"

Hawkins blinked. "Why not?" He searched Jake's face, puzzled.

Jake stared back mutely. He wasn't trying to be obstinate; he just honestly had no idea how to even start explaining. Anyway, if there was anyone who'd be able to figure it out on his own, it was this man. If there was anyone Jake _wanted_ to know, it was this man. He didn't stop to wonder why.

Hawkins frowned. He tilted his head like he was trying to read Jake's mind, and he must've succeeded – or maybe he knew Jake just that well – because understanding dawned with a widening of Hawkins' eyes. "Fuck. What did he- when-?"

He pressed his lips together to stop any more words from tumbling out and turned away to pace a few steps. Jake watched him ball his fists and lower his head, broad shoulders rising defensively. He looked agitated without moving beyond that, ready to punch something. Jake's breath hitched, the only sign of distress he allowed himself. It was enough to bring Hawkins back to his side in a heartbeat, concern in his gaze and a careful lack of expression on his face. "You okay?"

"No." Jake closed his eyes. "Hawkins-"

"I'll think of something." Something whispered over the burning skin of Jake's cheek, a ghost of a touch so gentle he wanted to cry. "I'll think of something."

 

**Chapter Eleven:   
"I'll Take It."**

First Ted had deserted right when he was needed most, thrusting his rifle at Hawkins and taking off like his pants were on fire. Then the fucking sniper had worn a vest and refused to be a good boy and die. _Then_ Jake's pet weasel had gotten herself shot – probably not intentionally and Maggie _had_ saved Jake's life, which bought her major brownie points with Hawkins, but _still_. If not for the timely intervention of ex-Mayor Green, that rescue would've gone south in a hurry.

And now it turned out all those rusty but heartfelt prayers Hawkins had offered up in between planning mayhem and killing people had been in vain and Jake hadn't been spared Constantino's twisted games after all. Hawkins didn't know how far Constantino had taken it; he wasn't sure it mattered. Far enough. Too far. Jake was in no condition to make the walk to Jericho, not tonight and not in the company of his family. There were things a man – any man – wouldn't want his daddy to know, and this was definitely one of them.

He left Jake leaning against the side of the truck, paler than usual and still breathing too shallowly for Hawkins's peace of mind. He'd have to keep an eye on that; Hawkins might have never really been a cop, but he could think of three date rape drugs at the top of his head that could cause serious respiratory problems. He wasn't even going to contemplate seizures, hallucinations, or coma, because there was nothing he could do right now but deal with the symptoms as they came and hope for the best.

Johnston Green glanced up when Hawkins moved over to him, but Hawkins was more interested in Maggie at first. She looked worse than Jake; pasty, sweaty, and the red just kept coming. If the blood loss didn't kill her, the shock might. Maggie must've sensed his scrutiny somehow, for she tilted her head back so she could see him and smiled faintly in greeting.

"How's Jake?" she whispered, and damn it, but there was a world of emotion in those few words that made him uncomfortable as hell.

"Not a scratch on him," Hawkins lied, smooth as sweet cream. He dipped his head at her, acknowledging the courage and loyalty she'd shown. "You did good, Maggie."

"I- I did?" Surprise and pleasure lit her fading eyes for a moment, made him think that maybe this was what Jake had seen in her all along, this buried-deep desire to be accepted. To be valued.

"You did," Hawkins confirmed. He smiled, and not even his mother would've been able to tell it was fake. "Would you excuse us for a sec? I need to borrow the mayor here."

Maggie's lashes fluttered with the effort to keep her eyes open. "Where- where's Jake?"

"He's helping Eric hide the truck," Hawkins explained, keeping his tone gentle. "He'll check on you in a minute." And he would; Jake wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to Maggie, Hawkins had no illusions about that. Might not be smart to give his father another good look at him, but Jake owed Maggie and he was too honorable not to acknowledge that.

She nodded, but didn't reply, and Hawkins used her struggle to stay conscious to pull Johnston Green aside, out of earshot. "We've got about twelve miles to cover... and I don't think she's gonna make it," he told the former mayor.

Green's jaw worked briefly and Hawkins realized he knew; he simply wasn't giving up yet. He looked a whole lot like Jake right then, especially when he shrugged fatalistically and said simply, "We gotta try."

_She didn't leave us_, Jake's voice added from somewhere within Hawkins' mind, _We're not leaving her_. Principled mules, the lot of them. Hawkins hoped they'd never have to change.

"Listen, Mayor-"

"'m not mayor anymore, Mr. Hawkins," Johnston Green interrupted. It had the sound of an auto-response, something he'd had to say so often since Gray Anderson had won the election it had become a reflex. Didn't make it any less annoying.

"...Mr. Green, then," Hawkins corrected, firmly squashing every bit of impatience that wanted to edge out. "It might be a good idea to split up."

That gray head came up sharply. "Why would that be a good idea?"

Hawkins kept his expression impassive. "If we separate, we double our chances of reaching Jericho soon enough to warn them about the situation in New Bern. Eric can't carry Maggie, and they might need protection. I'm thinking you take the fire road and Jake and I cut across the ridge, head for the Richmond farm."

"I could go with you," Green offered.

_Appeal to his parental instincts_, Hawkins thought, because sometimes, with a Green, you needed to use blunt instruments. "Eric needs you." He nodded at the slumped figure leaning against the tree not far away. "So does the lady."

"Not an easy trek across the ridge," Jake's father warned.

"Not an easy trek back to town with a deadweight and a beat up kid," Hawkins shot back. "D'you think Eric's up to it?" He wasn't even going to ask whether Green himself would be able to carry Maggie all the way back; the old man was tough as rawhide. Kansas-stubborn and Army Ranger grit; he'd hump her out of the woods and into Jericho and never once complain.

"Oh, he'll make it," Green promised, pride and confidence clear in his voice.

Hawkins smiled, trying to project the same conviction. "So will we."

* * *

Three hours later, when Hawkins had to practically toss Jake over the fence at the outer border of the Richmond property – which was a lengthy distance from the farm itself – he fervently cursed his optimism and his hurt arm. He wasn't at all sure he'd be able to get Jake to safety before the kid collapsed completely. He also couldn't imagine how Jake had managed _not_ to keel over for so long, because God knew he was barely able to keep his eyes open anymore.

Hawkins was just glad they'd set out on their own, because Eric couldn't have helped him with Jake, but he'd have been all over his ailing brother anyway. Eric fretting, Johnston demanding explanations, Maggie dying slowly... Hawkins didn't think Jake would've been able to take that.

"Come on," he muttered, mostly to himself for he wasn't sure Jake could even hear him, "Almost there. Keep going."

Jake's head lolled against Hawkins' shoulder for a moment then Jake obediently pulled himself together and stumbled on. Hawkins propped him up as well as he could, but he could tell Jake barely had any reserves left. He shook his head. Make that no reserves. The headstrong idiot had been running on fumes ever since they'd left New Bern.

Had he been alone, Hawkins would've been knocking on Stanley Richmond's door by now, gunshot wound or no gunshot wound. He knew it, but somehow the thought of stashing Jake somewhere and going to get help never really crossed his mind. Right now, Jake was unable to take care of himself. He'd just curl up on the ground if left to his own devices, and all those layers of clothing weren't enough to protect him from the still deadly cold rising from the frozen soil. No, leaving him was not an option.

Jake's legs gave out again and he sagged heavily against Hawkins, who caught and supported his weight with the ease of plenty of practice. Break time. They stood in the gathering darkness while Jake fought his overtaxed body for one more breath, one more step, one more mile. Tiny gusts of warm air made Hawkins' skin prickle with every shaky exhalation from where Jake's head rested against the crook of Hawkins' neck. Jake's scent, despite Hawkins' best efforts not to smell it, was an intoxicating mix of sweat, blood, and heavy musk, spiced up by the odor of crushed pine needles and rich earth from the first and only tumble he'd taken. Hawkins had held on to him ever since, kept him upright even when Jake's fucked-up sense of equilibrium made him stagger like a drunkard.

Movement in the dusk made Hawkins tense. He shifted carefully, redistributing Jake's bulk, and reached for his weapon. Not likely that they'd been followed, but you could never be too careful. A huge, lumbering shape approached them slowly, indistinguishable in the evening gloom. The sound of its footsteps was muffled by the yellowed winter grass, but...

Hawkins sighed in relief and put away the gun. Stanley likely wouldn't appreciate him shooting one of his horses. He stared at the big, chestnut creature eying him with interest and smiled. Now that he knew what to look for, he could make out several more horses moving towards them, ears pricked with curiosity. They seemed friendly enough; sure-footed, sturdy animals, shaggy coats glittering with frost, their breath rising in misty clouds around their long, handsome heads.

"North pasture," Jake mumbled against his neck. He dug his fingers into Hawkins' jacket, slowly lifted his head so he could look around. "There... should be a- a feed shack nearby." He pointed downhill, to their right.

This sounded suspiciously like Jake-speak for "I'm sorry, I can't make it any further". Even if it wasn't, Hawkins decided to interpret it that way, because Jake needed to rest. The others had to be halfway to Jericho by now, even with Eric gimping along and Johnston carrying Maggie like a side of beef. By the time they'd made it, delivered the intelligence Eric had gathered, and managed to organize a search party for Jake and Hawkins, Jake should be over the worst and ready to face other people again.

So Hawkins peered through the rapidly fading twilight until he made out something in the distance that could've been a boulder or a building then headed that way. The horses paced them amiably as they stumbled and weaved down the slope, either hoping for treats or enthralled by Hawkins' near-constant stream of mingled swearing and encouragement. It might've annoyed him a bit had he not been so busy keeping Jake and himself vertical and going.

He decided he wasn't going to kill Jake after all; much more satisfying to put a bullet into Constantino instead.

* * *

The hulking shape turned out to be a building after all. Looked more like a small barn than a shack to Hawkins, but then he was a city boy. He didn't give a flying fuck what it was called as long as it was dry and reasonably warm. He leaned Jake against the wall while he picked the padlock, the horses now _really_ fascinated by his doings. They must've known there was food in there. Or they were just that bored. Who knew.

The small flashlight he always carried in his jacket pocket proved useful once again as he checked out their shelter. He'd been right; it seemed to be primarily a barn. Hay bales were stacked along the back wall, not all that many left, and he could make out what seemed to be a single stall on the one side and a closed-off extra room to the other.

"There's an oven in the bunk room," Jake piped up from the doorway. "First aid kit, too."

Hawkins glanced at his arm, noted the dark stain on the bandage. Well, had to be expected after lugging Jake across that ridge. He made a fist, moved the arm, focused on the tug and burn of the wound as his muscles stretched and contracted. Not too bad. He might've torn a stitch or two, but he didn't think he'd need to replace them. Mayor Green's handiwork sure was sturdy. "I'm good," he said.

He went back to the door to collect Jake, who looked like he was getting mighty tired of being hauled around like a piece of baggage. He didn't grouch though, which was something Hawkins appreciated a lot. Most civilians he knew would've bitched out of principle by now. Of course, Jake hardly qualified as a civilian. Hadn't even before he'd founded the Jericho Rangers and started to forge them into a force to be reckoned with.

The bunk room was small, but fully equipped. In addition to a blackened wood stove, there was a small pantry, an old-fashioned wash basin, and a crude bed frame. A plastic-covered mattress was leaning against the wall. Hawkins, flashlight clenched between his teeth, pulled the cover off and put the mattress on the bed, then deposited Jake there while he looked around some more. He found an oil lamp and lit it, laughed out loud when he discovered a chamber pot – "Bonnie. Don't ask," was all Jake had to say about that – and went back outside to bring in firewood.

The horses were still there and he tossed them a few armfuls of hay just to say thanks for the company then returned back inside and closed the door against the cold. Jake was still where he'd left him, stretched out on his side, head cushioned by one arm. He blinked owlishly at Hawkins from under his hood. His clothes were dirty and torn in places, his dark bangs tousled and in desperate need of a cut. He looked exhausted and a little flushed; his wide, slanted eyes dark and inscrutable.

Something twisted deep in Hawkins' guts at the sight, primal and possessive. He wanted to sit down next to Jake, brush back the cowl of Jake's hoodie and cradle the back of his head to hold him still while he took Jake's mouth in a kiss that left no doubt about his intentions. He nearly trembled with the urge to strip Jake down and press him into the mattress, cover him with his own body, push his swollen, needy cock in so deep Jake would feel him for days... and then keep him thus sweetly aching for the rest of their lives.

Oh... damn it. So much for uncomplicated.

The most embarrassing thing about it was how much this sudden flood of desire surprised Hawkins. He'd always prided himself on being exceptionally perceptive. Part of it was training, but the essence of it was why he'd received this training in the first place. You didn't get selected for a one-in-a-million secret service program if you were a mental klutz. Of course he'd noticed Jake was attracted to him; he'd been attracted right back. It had been under control, comfortable even. Hawkins had had his hands full trying to reestablish some sort of connection with his family, figure out where he stood with Darcy and the kids, and keep the bomb safe and hidden on top of that, and Jake had his own life. There'd been no pressure, no pushing from either side, just an almost absentminded appreciation of what might be, could be, didn't have to be.

Except it was so much more... and Hawkins had missed it.

"You're staring," Jake muttered, sounding a lot better now that he didn't have to hike through the woods anymore, but still rough.

Hawkins twitched, which would've mortified him except he had worse problems... not least that he wanted to do a lot more than _stare_. Talk about bad timing. Hawkins might be an opportunist, but there was no way he'd make a move on a friend who'd recently been drugged and almost certainly sexually assaulted. Not only would it make him a kind of asshole he refused to become, it would also likely cost him Jake's trust... and that was unacceptable. Broken faith was what was wrong between him and Darcy, and even though they'd been starting to learn to live with it (before Sarah had fucked it all up again), they'd never be able to fix it. He couldn't go through the same with Jake. He needed Jake too much.

He rubbed a hand over his face, hard. Wasn't all that easy to wipe away that little epiphany, but he'd been black ops – he could dissemble with the best of them. Get Jake back on his feet now, freak out later, preferably where nobody could see and he could pretend it had never happened.

"Any idea what he gave you?" he asked, first and foremost to distract himself. He turned away from Jake and busied himself building a fire and searching for coffee. There'd be no sleep for him tonight anyway, might as well stock up on caffeine.

"I didn't know the first four times you asked," Jake grumbled, somewhat exasperated. "What makes you think that changed?" He shifted on the bed, hips undulating obscenely until he settled again. Hawkins wasn't one hundred percent sure, but it looked like Jake was hard. Must've been the drug. Fuck. The second Hawkins had a day to spare, he was going to find Constantino and make him pay.

"Probably G," Hawkins speculated. GHB could be mixed at home, no lab necessary, and the effects matched Jake's symptoms. No way of telling whether or not Constantino had added a little extra to the concoction though.

"Probably," Jake agreed, sounding distracted. His hand came up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. "Fuck."

Hawkins stopped his investigation of Stanley's pantry, concern overriding his determination not to look at Jake again until this bout of insanity was over. "Jake?"

"Headache," Jake muttered. "Man, I'm gonna _kill_ Constantino."

"Not if I get him first." Hawkins hesitated, a small bag of beans forgotten in his hand. Jake looked miserable. Allison-on-the-rag miserable. Hawkins really wanted to feed him some Tylenol, but the last thing Jake needed right now were more drugs. Damn it. With any other man, he would have tactfully turned his back and let them suffer in peace. Hawkins sighed. "You couldn't just get beaten up like Eric, could you?"

He stood up and walked over to the bed, tossing the bag of beans on the floor as he went. Jake watched him coming with a scowl. "Like that was _my_ choice."

"You're just too pretty for your own good," Hawkins teased, then could've kicked himself when he realized what he'd said.

Fortunately, Jake wasn't the fragile type. He just snorted derisively. "Up yours. Constantino doesn't give a shit about me; he was trying to fuck over my dad." He pulled a face. "God, that sounds so wrong."

It also explained why Jake was so adamant his father couldn't know about what had been done to him. Beyond the obvious, that was.

Jake moved over so Hawkins could sit down then looked up at him hopefully. "You know some Vulcan nerve grip to stop that headache?"

Hawkins chuckled, cramming every single inappropriate emotion as far into the back of his mind as humanly possible. "No. My wife tells me I give one hell of a massage though."

"I'll take it," Jake said.

...maybe that's how it really started.

 

**Chapter Twelve:   
"Gimme Five Minutes and a Cup 'a Joe and I'll Be Good to Go."**

It had been about twelve hours since Jake had swallowed down that goddamn apple juice. Twelve hours since he'd felt Constantino's hands in places he didn't want to think about, had been stretched and slicked and penetrated while another man watched greedily. Almost ten hours since he'd noticed the drug kick in. Parts of it were blurry, though he couldn't tell whether the haziness of his memories was due to chemicals or simply emotional overload. He didn't care. If he could've erased the entire sordid affair, he'd have done so without a second thought. His skin was _still_ crawling with the phantom sensation of unwanted intimacy.

Despite the lingering discomfort though, Jake was pretty sure he was on the downhill side of it. He'd suffered through the worst during the first two hours of their nightmare trek through the woods. How Hawkins had kept him going, had gotten both of them _over the ridge_ no less, was a mystery. It didn't surprise him as such – Jake was firmly convinced that Hawkins could do anything he set his mind to, because Hawkins didn't know the meaning of the word "surrender" – but it was impressive. Even more impressive was that Hawkins was actually succeeding in dispelling Jake's bitch of a headache with nothing but firm, gentle strokes of his fingers. That was magic.

Eyes closed, Jake shifted until he could rest his head on Hawkins' lap. Better angle for Hawkins, more comfortable for Jake, and he hated to admit it, but he needed the contact. Hawkins kept the demons at bay. Even when he hadn't been there, the shadow of his presence had shielded Jake from Constantino's covetous stares, the intrusive violation of his touch. Jake knew he wouldn't have gotten through it on his own; not as relatively unscathed, that was.

The change of position must've surprised Hawkins, because the slow, soothing stroking of his fingers against Jake's temples faltered and Jake heard and felt him suck in a deep breath. There was something just a bit off about the reaction; it made Jake drag up heavy lids to check on his friend. Maybe he should've looked at Hawkins' face first, but he was tired, he didn't think. Hawkins' crotch was right in his line of sight and Hawkins was hard. It wasn't a half-hearted proximity hard-on either.

Had Hawkins been anybody else, Jake would've freaked. He nearly did anyway, but his slaphappy brain couldn't seem to work up the energy. It switched to humor instead, because that required less flailing and had yielded decent results in the past. "That a rocket launcher in your pocket?"

Hawkins froze. "I'm sorry," he said, quietly.

Now that was funny. Constantino had humiliated Jake, hurt him, intended to damage him in a way that was irreparable, and he'd done it without a second's regret. Hawkins' body had an unsolicited reaction to a situation it probably knew as foreplay, and the man looked like he'd committed an unforgivable sin. He also looked like he desperately wanted to bolt but couldn't because that would've meant dropping Jake. Jake smirked; he couldn't help it. "When _was_ the last time you got laid?"

The expression in Hawkins' eyes slipped from heartache to rueful amusement. "I can't even remember," he admitted.

Now that was a shame. "You know," Jake mused, twisting until he could meet Hawkins' gaze head-on, "maybe we should stop pussying around." He felt Hawkins tense up again but refused to do the same. He made the drug work for him instead, rode the last waves of synthetic languor to keep them both calm. "I want it." He pointedly did not peek at Hawkins' crotch. "You want it." He hesitated; offered reluctantly, "Doesn't have to mean anything."

That last comment made Hawkins scoff. "Jake, with you, it'd mean _too much_." He shook his head, tried to edge away without dislodging Jake too roughly. "I don't know why I'm even talking with you. You're wasted."

"I also had Constantino's fingers up my ass," Jake added, mood souring quickly. "Guess that makes me sloppy seconds, huh?"

The back of his head hit the mattress so hard it bounced. Jake barely noticed, because he had a livid, spitting mad Hawkins in his face. "You will _not_," Hawkins seethed, "_ever_ talk about yourself like that again." His voice was a hoarse whisper, so furious it shook. "Who the hell- _what_ the hell do you think I am, that I'd-" He glanced down, realized his fists were knotted in the folds of Jake's hoodie and let go with an angry hiss.

Jake's hand shot out, grabbed Hawkins' wrist before he could push away and put some distance between them. He felt chagrined; had their roles been reversed, he would've been just as furious. "Don't go," he pleaded. He tugged at Hawkins' sleeve, careful to keep his grip light so his friend could move away anyway if he wanted. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have- I put you in a bad position there." He cleared his throat self-consciously. "I apologize."

Slowly, not quite appeased yet, Hawkins sat back down. He looked at Jake's fingers and Jake let go of him immediately. After a long moment, Hawkins relaxed. "You're drugged," he said.

"Yeah," Jake acknowledged, "but it's almost worn off."

"Did he rape you?" Hawkins asked, bluntly.

_Define rape_, Jake thought miserably. Did fingers count? Did toys? He wasn't sure. He figured there were probably degrees of violation; it could've been worse. If his father hadn't arrived when he had, hadn't made Constantino meet him at the bridge... Mike had forced him to watch that meeting; had stood him naked in front of that huge wall of glass with his ass stretched painfully around the smooth bulk of a plug, lube wetting the insides of his thighs and Mike rutting idly against his cleft while his father confronted Constantino. Jake had never felt more humiliated in his life, spread open and penetrated, at an enemy's mercy with nothing but the tint of the glass hiding his degradation from his father. Had he been raped?

"Yeah," he said.

Hawkins' eyes closed for a second and he nodded to himself. Jake watched him carefully, waiting for he didn't know what. Absolution, maybe. Hawkins wouldn't give him pity, which was one of the reasons why Jake had told him at all. He needed a partner to lean on, just for a little while, not some well-meaning Good Samaritan to coddle him.

Hawkins didn't disappoint. "I'm not trying to make your decisions for you, Jake," he murmured, and Jake's heart constricted when he felt a caress against his forehead; dark, callused fingers brushing a strand of hair out of Jake's face. "I'm just saying this isn't a good time. Sleep on it. Be sure. I'm not going anywhere, but..." He paused, mouth tightening briefly, unhappily. "This is gonna affect both of us, Jake. Not only us but our families, too, if anybody finds out. My children... my wife."

This wasn't exactly news. Jake had thought about it before. Every time he'd been tempted to start something with Hawkins that went beyond friendship, he'd remembered the possible repercussions and kept silent. Every time Hawkins had seemed on the verge of making an overture, Jake had seen those same considerations flash across his features and Hawkins had stopped short. Neither of them came without strings attached.

But even before, Jake had felt drawn to the other man beyond rhyme or reason. His body had yearned for Hawkins'. They fit like two pieces of a whole, in a way Jake had never experienced with anybody else. And now he was damaged; not broken, but dented and scarred like metal after taking heavy flak, and he felt like Hawkins might be the only thing that could keep him from cracking. He could repair a few dings in his pride; dealing with serious fractures would be indefinitely harder.

He stared up at Hawkins, who returned his gaze steadily, and his stomach dropped. Hawkins was right. This wasn't only about Jake. Hawkins had put his own life on the line to rescue Jake and Eric, and he'd born Jake's weight without complaint. He was a good friend, the best Jake had ever had, and it was pretty damn selfish to demand he risk everything he had so Jake could replace some bad memories.

A shudder started in the solid knot that had formed beneath his ribs and Jake had to work hard to keep it contained. He could feel himself slipping, down to where his monsters lived in the bullet-shaped hole at the center of his heart. The whisper was back, putrid and vicious; reminding him he had no call to seek solace. He was alive. Little Amira wasn't, and that was thanks to his screw-up. He'd forfeited his right to moan about shit happening to him. _Deal or die_, the whisper rasped, like it did so often, _you fucked up, keep fucking up; time you got some of it back, don't you think?_

"Okay," he breathed, unable to tell whether he was talking to Hawkins or the voice inside his guilty mind.

Hawkins frowned, as if he didn't like what he heard or saw. "Jake?"

"Okay," Jake repeated, as flatly as possible to keep the loneliness and defeat concealed. Last thing he wanted was to give Hawkins a bad conscience. Emotional blackmail would've been kinda counterproductive. "I'm gonna-" He gestured vaguely, feeling numb and bruised at the same time, only knowing he had to get out from under Hawkins' much too observant stare. "I'm gonna sleep on it."

But he already knew he was never going to bring it up again.

* * *

Jake hadn't thought he'd actually manage to drift off, but the strain of the past few days took its toll and he slept like the dead. Except the dead don't dream, whereas Jake was haunted almost from the moment he closed his eyes. He dreamed in snatches and tatters; Iraq, New Bern, Jericho. Bombs, bullets, anal plugs. April, Amira, Maggie.

Eric died in a hundred different interrogation rooms, in a hundred different ways.

A Ravenwood sniper set up camp in the middle of Main Street in Jericho and started killing people. Hawkins shot him from behind. He pulled off the man's bandanna and the face beneath was Jake's.

Maggie rode naked into a burning village in Afghanistan on the main gun of a tank, grinning like a joker. She turned and waved. One of her legs was a bloody stump. Her throat was slashed, blood pouring over her bouncing breasts in crimson rivulets.

Hawkins carved up Perkins like a Christmas turkey, but it was only a movie. The popcorn in Jake's hand smelled like charred flesh. The seat cushion was squishy.

Two little girls played fetch in New York. One looked like Bonnie Richmond, age ten. The other was Amira Sa'eed. She looked like she had seconds before Jake's bullet had blown out her brain. A bomb went off. The girls disintegrated in slow motion. Somewhere, Stanley screamed and screamed.

Constantino pressed Jake's face against the glass wall in his cabin and raped him from behind with a cock so big it made Jake's stomach bulge, while Jake's father watched from the bridge. Johnston Green was wearing Army fatigues. He spit on the ground when Jake cried out for him, and walked away.

Jake was flying a plane over a desert. There was nothing below, no people, no towns, no roads. The plane was reacting only sluggishly to the controls, and when he turned around he saw why: it was crammed full of dead people. The corpses were stacked like firewood in the passenger cabin, and he knew every single face.

He curled into a ball and slipped deeper into unconsciousness.

* * *

Jake had gotten used to waking or being woken up abruptly. Overseas, it had been par for the course – not necessarily because of some kind of emergency (though that had happened often enough) but primarily because, in a camp full of mercs, you did _not_ want to be the one who tended to sleep in. In Jericho, people had gotten used to approaching him with their problems whenever those occurred, so he got very little rest. Not that he minded. Jake and Sleep were wary acquaintances at best. Cousin Nightmare was too frequent a visitor.

It was highly uncommon for Jake to float slowly back to some sort of alertness, coming up from the shark-ridden depths in stages rather than in a desperate bid for safety. It was also almost as extraordinary these days for him to be warm and relaxed upon waking. The couch at his parents' house was too narrow and lumpy to fit him comfortably, and with fuel of any kind strictly rationed, being cold had become his default mode.

As it was, it took him a good long while to realize that he was, in fact, in the process of waking up – that discovery though was more than enough to catapult him back to full awareness with a snap. He didn't move but took stock with his eyes closed at first, wary like a wild dog brought in from the cold. Jake was resting on a firm, if somewhat stale, mattress, in a nest of... horse blankets? Beyond the strong aroma of spicy animal sweat and hay, it smelled like morning – something dewy and fresh that was getting browbeaten by the bitter lure of freshly brewed coffee.

"Yeah, thought that'd do the trick," a warm voice observed in a tone of deep satisfaction when Jake lifted his head to search for the source of the promising odor.

"That real coffee?" Jake rasped. He was heartily tired of his mother's substitute, which was made from roasted acorns. Mary Bailey sold a slightly more palatable mixture based on roasted barley, malted barley, and rye – Jake should've known better than to ask – but, being a practicing insomniac, Jake was jonesing for the real deal.

"It is," Hawkins confirmed, and walked over to sit on the bed next to Jake and stare at him.

Jake scooted back a bit and sat up as well, studying his friend from under carefully lowered lashes. Hawkins had that calm and determined expression on his face that never boded well. He looked like a man who had questions and wouldn't stop until he got answers... and damned if there'd be coffee for either of them before he was satisfied. It made Jake wonder what the hell he'd said or done to become the apparent target for that attitude.

"What?" he asked, on the defensive already. He was not good at this kinda shit. Never all that skilled at subterfuge, though he'd become a master of evasion. When he was cornered, he was the type to dig in, shut down, not give an inch until the situation either built up into a shouting match or Jake spied an escape route and made a break for it. He had a feeling this tactic wouldn't work with Hawkins though.

Hawkins was still watching him with those dark, shrewd eyes, giving him nothing. "How're you feeling, Jake?"

Fair question. Jake took a moment to take stock of his condition then shrugged. "Fine. A bit hung over." He checked the window, saw the pale sky outside. "Gimme five minutes and a cup 'a Joe and I'll be good to go."

"We're not leaving yet," Hawkins told him easily.

Jake tensed. "Why not?"

"Because," Hawkins informed him, "you and I, we gotta talk." Jake opened his mouth to protest that notion, but Hawkins didn't give him the chance. "Something went wrong last night. I don't know what. All I know is, we were talkin' and then, just like that-" He snapped his fingers, "-you were gone in your head. Lights off."

"I was drugged," Jake reminded him, irritated because he wasn't sure what the fuck Hawkins was talking about.

Hawkins shook his head. "No. I've seen you do that before. Every time you're about to do some stupid, dangerous shit."

Oh. That. Jake swallowed, suddenly very uncomfortable in his skin. "I don't know what you-"

"You wanna fuck?" Hawkins interrupted him, changing tracks so quickly Jake's head spun. He knew it was a trap, had to be, but damn, he was off-balance and completely unprepared for Hawkins' interrogation technique. Did he want to fuck? No. Yes. He wanted... something. Closeness. Human touch. A partner. Someone to take some of the weight for a little while so Jake could breathe again. He'd thought Hawkins wanted it, too, but he wasn't sure anymore.

Hawkins was watching him closely, expression unreadable.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" Jake finally squeezed out. If he could have, he'd have bolted, but Hawkins was too close. He wouldn't let Jake run and Jake couldn't stand the idea of being touched right now.

"You offered. Last night." Hawkins smiled thinly. "Just after you told me you'd been raped."

_Oh, yeah_, Jake thought bitterly. _Thanks for the reminder._ "I was drugged," he repeated. He crossed his arms, pulled up his knees. "I don't remember."

That bought him a chuckle. "Oh, you remember all right," Hawkins huffed. "What I want to know is, do you still want it? Or did you just want to prove to yourself that Constantino didn't break you?"

"Constantino," Jake snarled, "is a dead man... and I don't break that easy." He gestured angrily. "Look, I'm sorry about offering. It was a shitty thing to do under the circumstances. You're my friend, you're married-"

"Is that it?" Hawkins asked, sharply. Jake hesitated, thrown. Hawkins stared at him intently then shook his head. "Part of it, maybe." Hawkins sighed, rubbed a hand over his mouth. "I'm separated, Jake. And even if I wasn't, the best thing I can hope for with Darcy is to win back some of her trust. Be family again, friends. Lovers? That ain't gonna happen. I fucked up too badly for that." His voice dropped, roughened with an intensity that gripped Jake by the balls and tugged. "I'm not gonna make the same mistake again, Jake. We're gonna do this right, or we're not doing it at all."

 

**Chapter Thirteen:   
"Not Quite What I Had in Mind for Our First Time."**

This was either the best decision of Hawkins' life, or the worst mistake. He couldn't tell yet. All he knew was he had to act or he'd lose Jake anyway. He'd seen it in Jake's eyes the night before, like a curtain coming down, just before Jake had cut off their conversation to turn around and go to sleep.

Jake might not be broken, but he was damaged, and badly. Hawkins had known that from the start – like recognizes like – but he hadn't quite realized the extent of Jake's troubles until he'd witnessed Jake take that emotional header from a close range. Not a pretty sight. He hadn't been close enough to see the darkness fall when Jake had decided to face the Ravenwood mercs on the Tacoma Bridge. He'd only heard Dale talk about Jake aiming his car right at the closing gates at Black Jack Fairgrounds _knowing_ he couldn't make it, and Bill complain about how Jake had moved right into his line of fire to protect Emily's unbalanced fiancé during that hostage situation. This time though... this time he'd been close enough to _see_, and it had shaken him to the core.

He honestly didn't believe Jake wanted to die. Jake was a survivor, much too hardheaded to give up. The problem, as far as Hawkins could tell, was that Jake had been hit so often and so hard death didn't necessarily seem like the worst outcome anymore. Drugged and vulnerable, he'd reached out to Hawkins, and yes, the timing had been atrocious and the phrasing could've been better, but fact was, Jake had had the guts to try and change the status quo between them. Hawkins hadn't deliberately shot him down, hadn't intended to shoot him down at all, but Jake had been too hurt to listen properly.

It didn't leave Hawkins with a lot of choices. As far as he could see, he could do nothing and he'd keep Jake's friendship on a surface level, but lose something essential in the bargain, because this wasn't about sex as such, it was about commitment. The bitch of it was, Hawkins was almost certain Jake wasn't even consciously aware of how he was confusing cause and effect, and words wouldn't be enough to make it sink in. Not for real. Years of therapy might've made a dent, but most psychiatrists had been obliterated in the nuclear blasts.

Option number two was to give Jake the physical affirmation he needed at the risk of messing him up even worse than he already was, because you don't _fuck_ a guy with a fresh rape trauma. It was like spanking someone who'd just been beaten up to make them feel better. It was idiotic.

Either way Hawkins was sure to cause damage and there was no way to tell which was the lesser evil. He had to pick one. Go with his gut and hope for the best. The last time he'd been this scared had been when his psychopathic ex-lover had held a gun to his son's head.

Jake was still staring at him in stubborn silence. He'd taken a gamble the night before and he'd lost; he wasn't going to stick out his hand again to have it slapped away. That was what happened when you took two emotional cripples and told them to go start a passionate love affair. Fuck.

"Listen, Jake," Hawkins tried, quiet and with as much sincerity as he could cram into his voice. It rang false to him, because he'd almost forgotten how to let his real emotions bleed through. "You were right, okay?" He swallowed past something thick and lumpy in his throat. "You were right. We've both been wanting this for a while now."

Jake smiled, but it wasn't a relieved "getting with the program" smile. It was a polite "do you think I'm fucking _stupid_?!" smile. "You don't have to humor me, Hawkins," he said wryly. "It's okay. Let's just..." He waved a hand vaguely at the window, "...get our asses back to Jericho and deal with the New Bern situation, all right?"

He just _had_ to make things difficult, didn't he? Hawkins sighed. "You were DUI last night, Jake. I couldn't-"

Both hands up this time, classic "whoa, slow down". Jake was in full deflection mode. "It's fine, Hawkins. I'm fine. Can we _please_ change the subject?"

You had to hand it to him, Jake was good. Not so much at the "convincing" part, because he didn't look remotely "fine", but at the "we are _not_ talking about this" tone. Most other people would've taken the hint and given up, at least for the moment. Hawkins, though, wasn't most people. He still had one foot in the metaphorical door there and he knew he couldn't afford to pull it back or the damn thing would slam shut and stay shut.

"You're not drugged now," he reminded Jake softly.

This time, something must've carried in his voice that rang true. Jake grew very, very still. He stared at Hawkins searchingly, and the wariness in his gaze felt like a slap in Hawkins' face.

He met Jake's scrutiny head on, used his fear of losing Jake to tear down as many of his masks as he could to show what lay beneath: the worry, the affection, the bone-deep desire both for Jake's person and his body. Everything he couldn't say, because he simply didn't have the words. He'd only ever learned how to lie; the truth was a weapon to be used only in emergencies.

"I'm not drugged now," Jake confirmed slowly.

And then he proved once again that he had more balls than anybody else Hawkins knew, because he pulled aside the blanket in wordless invitation.

* * *

Hawkins had rarely indulged in fantasies about Jake. He hadn't seen the point, had never been one to let his mind wander much while he took care of business. He hadn't thought much about Darcy either, not even way back when the memory of her sweet curves had been less distant. Too dangerous just for the sake of physical gratification. If there was no partner, it was a task; body maintenance. He'd mostly just focused on the slide of his own hand, mechanical, designed to take care of the itch so he could function smoothly again. It had been safer.

Only sometimes, in the dark of night, half asleep on the cot in his basement and halfway there already, had thoughts of Jake snuck in like thieves. Pretty standard porn fantasies, but they'd gotten him off like a shot. Jake on his knees, mouth filled with Hawkins' cock; Jake bent over Hawkins' desk, his needy hole stuffed so full he was begging for mercy. Jake on the hood of his gas-guzzling muscle car, sliding up and down as Hawkins plowed into him. Jake in Hawkins' bed with his fingers clutching the headboard and his ass in the air, waiting to be mounted.

What he got was Jake on a bare mattress on a small mountain of horse blankets, wearing an estimated four layers of clothing, dark eyes still guarded even as he silently challenged Hawkins to prove he'd been serious. Hawkins didn't feel particularly turned on, which he figured was all right, because Jake clearly wasn't either.

"What?" Jake asked, but he didn't sound quite as reserved as Hawkins had expected.

"Not quite what I had in mind for our first time," Hawkins admitted freely. He bent down to unlace his boots and drop them next to Jake's without taking his gaze off the man himself.

Jake's lips quirked. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hawkins drawled, losing the jacket. "Clean sheets?"

"We have coffee," Jake offered, and shot a longing glance in the direction of the pot. He was calming down visibly, put at ease by the banter and Hawkins' unfeigned willingness to go through with it. His reaction went a long way in reassuring Hawkins he'd made the right decision. Didn't mean there'd be no pitfalls ahead, but what the hell. Hawkins was a trained operative. He'd find the path of least resistance.

"I was going to woo you with Mary's best moonshine." Hawkins crawled towards Jake on all fours, lured in by a narrow strip of pale skin peeking out from where Jake's ratty hoodie had ridden up.

"Uh-huh," Jake grunted, apparently too distracted by Hawkins' approach to come up with a snappier comeback. There was definite interest in his eyes now and Hawkins felt an answering pulse of lust. He nudged Jake's legs apart so he could kneel in between and let his hand rest high up on Jake's thigh. No fondling, just touching, feeling the tight line of muscle under denim, the warmth of Jake's skin.

"May I?" he asked quietly, nodding at Jake's shirt.

"Uhm... yeah." Surprised, as if he hadn't expected Hawkins to ask for permission. As if Hawkins could've been anything but careful with Jake after what Constantino had done.

Hawkins slid his fingers up Jake's thigh, over his hip, pushed up the hoodie and the – one, two, three – shirts beneath until the fabric was bunched beneath Jake's armpits. Jake looked awkward for a second or two, then slowly raised his arms and leaned his head back against the headboard, giving Hawkins tacit permission to explore to his heart's content. If he was uncomfortable with this passive role his face didn't show it; only the hectic flutter of the pulse at his throat betrayed his nervousness. He was trusting Hawkins; maybe subconsciously testing his partner by allowing him free rein. Hawkins decided then and there to make good use of the opportunity; he had a feeling Jake would be a handful once he felt more secure.

The skin laid bare was smooth and pale, stretched tight over wiry muscle and shivering at the first caressing touch of Hawkins' thumb. Jake actually looked skinnier with his clothes on; he had slim hips, but his chest was deep and his shoulders wide and strong. His was a body that was primarily used as a tool or weapon; it possessed a toughness that couldn't be gained in a fitness center, faint scars and blemishes that spoke of hard use. No jewelry, except for a pair of scraped and tarnished dog tags resting above Jake's solar plexus. They weren't military, Hawkins noted, and they didn't offer anything but the most basic information – first name, last name, blood type, and some sort of serial number. Hawkins memorized the code out of habit, but knew he wouldn't check it. This was Jake's story to tell.

He stroked the pad of his thumb over Jake's silky flank again, back and forth, admiring the shocking contrast of his dark fingers against Jake's creamy white skin. Jake took in a stuttering breath and Hawkins' cock filled some more. It was getting tight there in his pants. He didn't want to draw comparisons, but his brain took him there anyway, if only fleetingly, because sex with Darcy had been a bit like this sometimes, slow and sensual. Sex with Sarah had been pure carnal greed, fast and comparatively impersonal. Neither of them had felt so final though, like this was it; this was what he'd been looking for. Like he could be perfectly happy with bony, angular hips and a flat, masculine chest from now on, as long as they came with the rest of Jake.

Before he knew what he was doing, Hawkins had bent down and was pressing his lips against Jake's bare belly. Jake's breath hitched again and Hawkins could feel his pulse pick up another notch. Jake wasn't particularly vocal, but the few sounds he did make were raw with pleasure. They hit right where it counted. Hawkins moaned as well and rubbed his face against Jake's abdomen, gently scratching the smooth skin with the rough texture of his beard.

Jake didn't try to move him but let him explore freely. One of his hands came to rest on Hawkins' head, petting him; he used the other to tug off the shirts completely. The arch of his body when he dragged the tangled material over his head pressed him firmly against Hawkins' mouth. Hawkins bit him; gently. He tasted Jake, scented him like an animal, drunk on the pure, undiluted flavor that made him wonder what Jake might taste like a little lower. Jake was definitely getting into it, too, hips rolling up to seek friction against Hawkins' body, legs coming up to cradle Hawkins' sides trying to pull him closer.

Hawkins licked and kissed his way up to Jake's tawny nipples, undoing the buttons of his fly as he went. He felt Jake tense briefly when Jake realized what he was doing, but Jake didn't tell him to stop. He twisted a little instead, wormed a hand between their bodies, and quickly opened his own belt and undid his zipper. Hawkins risked a glance downwards. Jake wasn't fully hard, but he was getting there. Their cocks looked pretty happy pressed against each other, the slight bend in Jake's making it seem like it was contemplating winding around Hawkins'. Now _that_ would've felt fantastic. Hawkins thrust against Jake cautiously, keeping a weather eye out for any signs of distress, but so far nothing they'd done had seemed to press the wrong buttons. Jake humped back eagerly. Thank God.

If there was one thing Hawkins was going to miss about women, it was tits, but Jake yowled and jerked when Hawkins nibbled on his nipple and started to pant erratically when Hawkins sucked on it and that was... unexpectedly erotic. Hawkins decided then and there that even without the lush round softness beneath, Jake's nipples would do. They were just the right size for tugging and suckling and-

"Goddammit, Hawkins," Jake snarled, doing some tugging of his own on Hawkins' ear. "I'm not a fucking chew toy!"

Reluctantly, Hawkins let go of the pebble-hard little nub between his teeth and looked up to check whether Jake was seriously pissed or just embarrassed by his own sensitivity. Jake's face was flushed, his pupils dilated. The dick pressed against Hawkins' was completely erect now and had to be drooling, because there was slickness there that didn't come from Hawkins. Hawkins grinned. "You liked it."

"That," Jake ground out, "isn't the point."

"I thought the point was to get off." Hawkins took a chance and lowered himself down on Jake, gradually, so Jake could put in a veto if it was too much for him to handle. The feeling of Jake's half naked body under his was every bit as addictive as he'd suspected.

"Yeah," Jake agreed, "but not like this." He shifted a little as if he'd only now noticed Hawkins was using him as a mattress but didn't protest the weight on top of him.

"How then?" Hawkins asked. This first time was Jake's. Whatever Jake wanted, whatever he needed, Hawkins was ready to do.

Jake ran a hand through his hair then across his mouth. "You ever fuck a guy?"

Whoa. Hawkins tensed, propped himself up on his arms to have a better view of Jake's face. Jake stared back, expectant. A little scared, maybe. Plenty determined. Hawkins had a good idea where this was going, and he didn't like it much. His dick did, but then his dick was a single-minded prick in the truest sense of the word. "Yeah," he said finally. "I have."

Jake nodded tersely. "There's cooking oil in the pantry. I don't have condoms, but I'm clean. Haven't fucked around in over a year." He smiled humorlessly. "Constantino used fingers and a plug they took from its original packaging."

Bad enough. No way to tell how bad it had really been, what else the fucker had done to Jake. Maybe Jake would talk about it someday. Probably, he wouldn't. Hawkins for his part hadn't touched anybody sexually after Sarah; they'd been careful, gotten regular check-ups, and it had been more than six months since the last time. He still didn't like doing it bareback; didn't like that Jake wanted to go that far at all, but after that disastrous conversation last night, he wasn't going to deny him. Maybe he should have, but Hawkins was no shrink. He just didn't _know_ how to best help Jake. They were winging it, but they were winging it as equal partners and Hawkins had to trust that Jake knew what he was doing. That's how they worked.

"If you can't take it, you tell me," he demanded anyway, voice tight. "You hearin' me? Any time. You say stop, we stop."

Eyes huge and solemn, Jake nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

Hawkins nodded back then reared up suddenly and pressed his mouth against Jake's in a quick, hard kiss. No tongue, only the firm pressure of lips, the soft rasp of his beard against the little bit of scruff on Jake's face; as much of a declaration as he could offer and Jake could take.

He pulled back to look at Jake and Jake smiled. Yeah. They were good. Hawkins pushed off the bed and went to get the oil.

* * *

"I feel like an idiot," Jake grumbled half an hour later, as he balanced awkwardly over Hawkins' lap. He had long legs, which made it easier, but angling himself without toppling over proved a bit of a challenge. Not necessarily a bad thing, Hawkins thought, because the effort kept him occupied and focused on the now.

"You _are_ an idiot," Hawkins shot back anyway, mouth operating mainly on auto-pilot. _He_ was kinda preoccupied, too. "We could've waited, y'know?"

He was feeling somewhat snappish, because he had Jake's tightly puckered nipples right in front of his face and Jake's pretty pink hole hovering right above his straining cock, but no contact on either front yet. It was his own fault, because he'd insisted on making sure Jake didn't feel pressured when they slicked and stretched him together. He was also the one who'd decided they were going to do it face to face, because he wanted to make sure he caught any sign of discomfort before it could grow into something worse.

"You wanna stop?" Jake challenged.

If Hawkins had caught the slightest hint that he was serious, the whole exercise would've ended there and then, but despite his precarious position, Jake looked a lot more at ease than he had in a while. The glint in his slanted fox eyes was mischievous rather than fearful; a glimpse of what Jake might be like in bed under more normal circumstances. Hawkins couldn't help but grin back, matching attitude with attitude. "Hell, no. I'm good. Comfy. How're you?"

"Kinda empty." Jake adjusted his position, one hand gripping Hawkins' shoulder for balance, the other reaching behind himself to find Hawkins' dick and steady it. If his fingers shook a bit, neither man mentioned it. "Hold still," he ordered, voice strained. "Here goes nothing."

"I wouldn't say _nothing_-" Hawkins started then cut himself off before his taunt could trail off into a whimper. He'd always had a bit of a kink for anal sex, enough so Darcy had been wary of letting him choose positions when they fucked, and Jake's ass? Was perfect. Snug and wet and hot, and the effort it took not to thrust up and fuck himself deeper into Jake's body made Hawkins sweat. He clutched the edge of the mattress, because if he had held on to Jake's hips, he'd have left bruises, and he stared up at Jake's face, because had he looked down to see his cock sink in inch by inch, he'd have lost it.

Wasn't like it was a hardship to watch Jake's expression as he impaled himself on Hawkins' dick. Eyes unfocused, lips parted, high cheekbones flushed, Jake was gorgeous. There was still a faint scar trailing across the bridge of his nose, the remnants of the deep scratch he'd suffered when Stanley's car had overturned with him in it. Hawkins wanted to kiss it, wanted to kiss every mark of violence off Jake's body, he was that far gone.

Jake kept forgetting to breathe and every time he remembered, he'd gasp a little as he dragged in a lungful of air and grunt quietly as he took in more of Hawkins' girth, and it drove Hawkins completely to distraction. He unclenched one hand from the mattress to stroke his fingers down Jake's heaving side, tracing the gentle ridges of Jake's ribs. They felt fragile to him, too close to the surface. Like almost everybody, Jake could've used a few good meals; more so than most, probably, because he'd been slender to start with, didn't sleep nearly enough, and expended a lot of energy solving other people's problems and teaching farm boys how to fight.

The tight ring of Jake's sphincter constricted around Hawkins' cock just then and drove any thoughts not directly concerning sex out of his mind. Well, almost. The imperative not to upset his partner prevailed even through his rapidly declining self-control. "Jake?" He barely recognized his own voice; it was so steeped in want. He also realized his fingers had found a home on Jake's waist after all, spanning the bony arch of his hip. God, he wanted to thrust. He needed permission so badly he was starting to shake. "Jake?"

Or maybe it was Jake who was shaking. He was definitely losing his erection there. Hawkins' head jerked up so he could scan Jake's face again. Jake's eyes were squeezed shut, his panting more pronounced. It didn't sound like he was being overwhelmed by arousal. Yeah, Hawkins thought grimly, that was _exactly_ why this had been such a bad idea.

 

**Chapter Fourteen:   
"Home."**

It was too much and it wasn't enough. He'd be able to deal with the preparations, because it was hard to flash back to Constantino when Hawkins was keeping him occupied with inane questions like, had he ever done it in a tree? (Not recommended, apparently.) Had his first time sucked as badly as Hawkins'? (Which was a big _Yes_, not that he'd ever admit it to Em.) Did he have a favorite flavor when it came to lube? (Hawkins turned out to be a big fan of cherry – you try to keep a straight face after _that_ little gem.)

Also? Hawkins made him feel so frickin' awesome, thinking became kinda optional anyway.

Hawkins had kept him firmly anchored in the present with his sugar-and-spice voice and his wicked fingers. The trouble had started when it came to the actual fucking. Wasn't Hawkins' fault. Jake riding Hawkins' lap was actually a fantastic idea, because it let Jake be as much in control as he could be without him being the one doing the topping. They could've done that and it might've been easier, but this wasn't about making it easy for Jake. It was about Jake burning Constantino and his dead-meat crony out of his system before they could start to fester. It probably wasn't the kind of therapy generally recommended, but Jake didn't see any other choice than to improvise and hope the cure wouldn't hurt him worse.

The trouble was that Hawkins had to use so much of his considerable willpower to hold back and let Jake drive, he couldn't keep distracting Jake. At first, Jake could handle it, could focus on Hawkins and marvel that he could take this usually tightly controlled man so close to the edge before they'd even properly started. He could use Hawkins' own distraction to admire the handsome face tilted up towards him, the broad, graceful nose, the full lips that had felt so right against Jake's, the... hole in Hawkins' ear... That one was good for about half the way down Hawkins' cock, because the mental image of Hawkins wearing an earring was... interesting.

It was the burn of being stretched so wide, filled so full, that lured Jake into closing his eyes. And once he'd done that, he was back in Constantino's cabin so fast his head spun, put on display and opened against his will, the unyielding bulk of that plug nudging into him without mercy. He thought about stopping his descent, but the memories gripped him, and his tiring muscles gave in to gravity and made him slide down inexorably until his butt was resting against Hawkins' (_Hawkins'?_) thighs.

And then he sat there and shivered, unable to see anything but Mike's leering face as the bastard held him steady while Constantino played with Jake's opening, unable to feel anything but the merciless pressure against his insides. He was on his knees, face forced against Mike's groin, threats against his brother ringing in his ears as his legs were pushed apart so Constantino could see everything, touch everywhere.

Instead, strong fingers grabbed his ass and he felt himself heaved up and spun around so fast he snapped out of his flashback instantly. He barely had time to yelp a protest before his back hit the mattress. Heart hammering like crazy, he stared up at Hawkins who was still between his legs, still buried deep in him, settling on top of him and staring down like he hadn't quite decided whether to strangle Jake or fuck him unconscious. Jesus, the guy was strong. Jake was taller than Hawkins, Hawkins shouldn't be able to toss him around like that. It was unfair... also, more of a turn-on than Jake had expected.

"Hawkins?" he asked, feeling breathless and completely out of his league, not to mention somewhat disoriented.

"Stop. Thinking," Hawkins growled, eyes spitting fire. He snapped his hips forward to emphasize each word and nailed Jake's hot spot dead on.

Jake cried out. His own hips arched up reflexively, wanting more of that good thing, and his cock revived so quickly his brain drained. No one home, everyone gone south on vacation. His mind, the sex tourist. And Hawkins, God bless him, saw that he had recaptured Jake's attention and was apparently determined to keep it, because he didn't stop.

Didn't stop. Didn't stop. Didn't- didn't-

There might've been cussing. And yelling. Jake couldn't be sure, because Jake was too busy humping up against Hawkins' flexing abdominal muscles and clutching Hawkins' pistoning dick with his ass to care. Everything about the experience with Constantino had been slow in order to imprint every painful, degrading detail. Hawkins, once he chose to toss caution overboard, was all about power and urgency. He broke Jake apart into tiny splinters of sensation: the delicious friction burn of getting plowed; the dizzying rhythm of being dragged back and forth over the mattress with the force of Hawkins' pumping; Jake's own cock trapped perfectly in the moist heat between their bodies; their mingled sex-scent-taste, thick on Jake's tongue; the slick-smooth feel of Hawkins' skin under Jake's hands, against his thighs; the deep, hungry grunts squeezed past Hawkins' usual reserve; the sheer force of Hawkins' presence that shoved itself between Jake and his past like a shield.

And always, _always_, the way Hawkins looked at him. Like Jake was something important, something priceless he intended to keep. Like it didn't matter what Jake had done and been, Hawkins wanted him, wanted every damaged, scarred, fucked-up piece of his body and soul.

Jake couldn't have closed his eyes or averted his gaze if he'd wanted to. He was caught, good and proper. He couldn't do anything but cling to Hawkins with shaking hands, cry out with every fierce, possessive thrust, and let Hawkins ride him right to the crest and beyond.

* * *

Jake's ass hurt. It gaped, swollen and well-used, wetness oozing out and smearing the insides of his thighs. It would've reminded him of how he'd felt after Constantino had pulled out the damn plug, only he couldn't quite grasp that ugly memory because Hawkins' fingers were still there, playing with him. Rubbing the stretched rim of his hole, round and round, dipping in, keeping him stretched wide. Sliding through the mix of oil and semen and massaging it into the abused skin like a balm. Nothing but gentleness now, so different from anything Jake had known with men before.

They were lying side by side, facing each other but not really looking; Hawkins' forehead was leaning against the bow of Jake's collarbone, his breath warm against Jake's sweaty skin, and Jake's eyes were drooping and kept falling closed. Hawkins had lifted Jake's top leg and draped it over his hip to keep Jake open for his fingers and Jake was too spent and, frankly, too comfortable with Hawkins to feel mortified by how exposed he was.

A kiss was placed on Jake's shoulder, tender and respectful, and he trembled in reaction. "Jesus _Christ_, Hawkins..." he whispered, devastated.

"Did it work?" Hawkins murmured back, and Jake took some satisfaction in the fact that the velvety voice sounded about as fucked out as Jake's.

Jake chuckled. His entire body felt heavy and sated, completely pliant in Hawkins' arms. Slow, shivery aftershocks still coursed through him at random intervals, most notably when Hawkins' intimate caresses hit a particularly sensitive spot. It wasn't unlike being drugged, just without the drugs. "Worked like a charm," he said, and a brief, sharp stab of grim accomplishment cut through his post-coital lassitude. _Fuck you, Phil Constantino._

Hawkins drew back a bit so he could look at Jake's face, frowning slightly. Apparently, he didn't have the strength left for a full-on scowl. "You do realize this is only a temporary solution, right?"

"Yeah," Jake admitted. He'd survived enough traumatic situations to know it was never this easy, that the nightmares and the long-term consequences were still to come. The bitter whisper from the darkness of his mind was alive and well, but for the moment it was subdued, and Jake was determined to enjoy the respite. He smiled and tipped forward to lean on somebody else for the first time in years. "But it's a damn good start."

* * *

They slept for a while, and Jake dreamed of bombed-out buildings and screaming, grieving women, but he didn't dream about Constantino. He reckoned that was progress of a sort. When he woke up, Hawkins was there, warm and strong against him. Hawkins must've pulled the blankets over them at some point; the familiar smell of horse and hay mingled with their scent, and a piece of straw was poking Jake in the back. He squirmed to get away from the irritating scratching and sucked in a breath when the movement reminded him emphatically that he'd been ridden hard very recently. Damn, he was sore.

"You awake?" Hawkins asked quietly.

Jake grunted an affirmative only to be pushed back unceremoniously to make room for Hawkins to roll around, lean over the edge of the bed, and fish for something on the floor. What the hell-? There was a scrape of enamel across wood and then Hawkins was up and crouching and Jake laughed out loud at the sound of piss hitting the bottom of a chamber pot.

"Man, stop laughing," Hawkins complained, and Jake could've sworn he was blushing under his dark skin. "I didn't want to wake you."

"Aw, that's sweet of you," Jake cooed, then shifted uncomfortably as the continuous stream of urine woke up his own bladder. "Oh... fuck. You done yet?"

Hawkins cackled, but deigned to finish so Jake could use Bonnie's chamber pot as well. While Jake was thus occupied, Hawkins went to check how badly the coffee had burnt. By the time Jake was done, dressed, and had emptied the pot behind the shack under the watchful eyes of the small herd of horses, Hawkins had a cup of coal black liquid and a bowl of grits waiting for him.

"Eat up," he told Jake with a smile that was a little wistful but already edging back into the guarded reticence that Jake had come to expect from him. "We gotta get back to Jericho."

He was right, of course; they didn't have time to dawdle. They hadn't really had time to spend the night, but Jake couldn't find it in him to be sorry for having slowed them down. He'd needed the rest and, more importantly, he'd needed the human touch, the reassurance that Hawkins and he were indeed on the same page. If it never happened again, he'd at least have the memory of the way Hawkins had looked at him – was still looking at him as he handed over the bowl.

"Thank you," he said. He wasn't talking about breakfast and, after a second, Hawkins got it and nodded solemnly.

"Any time, Jake." It was a promise Jake hadn't expected and his quick, unthinking smile surprised Hawkins into the most brilliant smile in return. It changed Hawkins' whole face, lit up those guarded eyes, and caused Jake's heart to jump in his chest. He realized he would've given a lot to see his friend smile like that more often.

They ate sitting cross-legged on the bed, so close together their knees brushed with every movement, spooning the hot, salty grits in between sips of bitter coffee strong enough to kick their caffeine-weaned bodies into high gear. Each time Jake shifted to alleviate the pressure on his sore behind, Hawkins looked like the cat that got the cream, which made Jake feel torn between annoyance and the urge to offer an encore. He was still lubed and loose, but where the strange emptiness inside had nauseated him the day before, it merely made him flush a little now whenever he let himself be aware of it.

He hadn't expected Hawkins to want to talk, and Hawkins didn't. As soon as they were done eating, Hawkins went to wash the dishes in the creek outside and Jake wiped off the mattress as much as he could then covered it and stood it back up against the wall. He folded the blankets and put them back in the sick stall Stanley used as a tack and storage room when none of the horses was actually sick. Break time was over; Jake was starting to feel the urgency again to get back to Jericho, to warn his people about the war preparations in New Bern. He didn't even know whether Maggie had made it back alive, whether his father and brother were still on the road. Only God knew what Constantino was up to; he might be just a step behind now.

"Are the horses still there?" he asked Hawkins when the other man came back from outside, frost coating the hem and knees of his pants.

Hawkins glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. "Yeah. Why?"

"Can you ride?"

"Yeah." Hawkins pulled a face. "Haven't in a while though. You figuring on borrowing two of the nags?"

"Don't ever let Stanley catch you talking about his top breeders like that," Jake warned, offended on behalf of the Richmonds. "Those mares are worth more than your house." He nodded towards the stall. "I'll bring in the ladies, you put the stuff back, and we can go."

Only one of the three saddles was serviceable, the others were useless. Also, they had lots of bridles but only one bit. Knowing Stanley, he'd stowed the stuff there because he was too much of a packrat to toss it out, but it'd do in a pinch. Jake grabbed a halter and went to fetch a horse for Hawkins, a sweet-tempered, bay-colored mare not likely to give Hawkins trouble no matter how out of practice he was. He saddled her quickly and left her to peruse the hay bales in the corner while he picked a mount for himself. The other horses stayed close, probably hoping for a chance to be walked through the horse equivalent to the pearly gates and into hay heaven as well.

Hawkins frowned when he saw Jake tie a pair of leather reins to his mare's halter. "Where's your saddle?"

"Don't got none," Jake said easily and led the bulky sorrel to one of the bales so he could climb on her back more comfortably. He reached back to readjust his gun so it wouldn't slip out during the ride. Once they got going, they wouldn't stop until they hit the picket line. "Don't need one," he added when he noticed Hawkins' dubious expression.

"It's your ass." Hawkins caressed the body part in question with a fond and slightly concerned look. "You're gonna feel that tomorrow."

Tomorrow? Jake was feeling it _already_. Right now, sitting astride the big sorrel, sleek muscle shifting between his wide-spread legs and the phantom bulk of Hawkins' dick an aching lack in his ass, he felt kinda slutty. Wouldn't take long until he felt raw instead. It was just... he'd be walking bowlegged for a few days no matter what. He'd rather people think it was from riding bareback when he wasn't used to it anymore. That way, nobody – Eric in particular – would think to ask a different kind of question.

"I'll be fine." He pushed the sorrel towards the bay, snatched up her reins, and tossed them to Hawkins. "Let's go."

Hawkins didn't make an issue of it. He snatched the reins and followed Jake out of the shack with his own mare in tow. Outside, Hawkins closed the door, reengaged the lock, and mounted efficiently but with a distinct lack of grace. It was kind of refreshing to know he wasn't scarily good at _everything_.

When he was settled in the saddle, Hawkins looked at Jake and smiled faintly. "Home?"

For a second, the whisper stopped. Jake smiled back. "Home."

So they rode, and war followed with them.

...and _that_ was how it started.

 

**Epilogue:   
Going Home**

So they started a war. On purpose.

Not exactly something Hawkins had ever thought he'd end up doing, but he had to admit he was guiltily glad he hadn't had to go it alone. Trust Jake to crawl off his sickbed after a week of torture and sleep-deprivation to follow Hawkins on a potential suicide mission to steal back the nuke from Cheyenne... without a word of complaint. No "How the _fuck_ did you lose the fucking _bomb_?" Not a single question about why Hawkins hadn't participated in Jake's rescue. Jake had dragged himself off the cot, grabbed his gear, and gone with Hawkins just because Hawkins needed him. It had been quite an exercise in humility.

Embarrassingly enough, Hawkins didn't even remember much about the events after he'd been shot by the motherfucker responsible for the bombs going off. He'd been too busy bleeding and fighting shock; Jake had done most of the work. No hesitation, no talking back, even when Hawkins told him to drive right through the gates of the Texan embassy – Jake's trust in Hawkins and Hawkins' judgment had been absolute even under such extreme circumstances. The only time he'd gone against orders had been when it came to leaving Hawkins behind. That, he'd refused to do. Jake had dragged him out of the car and all but kicked him into the plane, not that Hawkins had been in any condition to fight him. The last thing Hawkins remembered was Jake's hands on his ass, shoving him into the relative safety of the jet's cabin. Then blackout. So much for sacrificing himself for the cause.

They told him later Jake had barely gotten to the runway and off the ground before their pursuers had arrived, and that he'd then made a beeline for San Antonio and stayed on course even with two F-15s on his ass threatening to shoot him out of the sky. Hawkins felt pretty ambivalent about that; on the one hand, he was ridiculously proud, because Jake was a stubborn SOB who hadn't yielded, had gotten the job done... on the other hand, the notion of Jake playing chicken with two fighter planes made him feel sick to his stomach. Made him worry about Jake's suicidal streak again and wonder how often those demons whispered in his friend's ear.

What Hawkins knew was what little he'd registered during the brief periods of consciousness that had followed: Jake by his side when they loaded him into an ambulance, looking like he should be on that stretcher right next to Hawkins; Jake at the hospital, lost and dirty amid all the busy sterility around them; Jake snoring like a trooper in a chair next to Hawkins' bed, sprawled out with an endearing lack of grace; Jake laughing in Hawkins' face when Hawkins tried to make him understand that he'd taken a stupid risk and should've just left Hawkins when Hawkins had told him so.

It took two surgeries and several weeks in a military hospital in San Antonio to restore Hawkins to some semblance of health. The bullet hadn't gone clean through. Apparently, it had ricocheted off a rib and done some damage to his insides. The scar was going to be spectacular, not that he particularly cared beyond the fact that it was going to make him more recognizable. At least he'd be able to hide it under his shirts most of the time. He'd lost a lot of blood, his doctor told him he was missing a few non-vital bits and pieces, and if Jake and Hawkins' former teammate, Chavez, hadn't taken pains to keep Hawkins in the loop, he'd have lost his mind for sure.

It got better once Hawkins was out of immediate danger and on his way to recovery, because that was when the briefings began. It was tiring and repetitive to report everything he remembered, think about it, tell it again, then again to different people, identify the players he'd uncovered and help filter through the information, then start all over, but at least it kept him occupied and it was familiar. Between the tactical meetings and physical therapy, Hawkins' days were frustrating and painful as hell at times, but never boring.

He could tell Jake was starting to chafe at the bit though. The younger man wasn't happy about having to cool his heels in San Antonio while the already unstable post-bombs America went up in flames. The evidence Jake and Hawkins had delivered was examined carefully and, as expected, the results prompted Texas to officially side with Columbus. There was some political toe-stepping, hard words between the leaders in Cheyenne and Columbus, and then Texas charged ahead and sent out a nationwide television broadcast overriding all local signals to make public what they now knew about the attacks, and the entire country went roaring into its second civil war. Hawkins didn't have to use his special Jake-reading skills to be able to tell Jake was desperate to get back to Jericho.

Chavez had decided to stick around while waiting for his new assignment and noticed Jake's growing restlessness as well. He did what Hawkins couldn't: he took Jake out of the hospital and involved him in the military end of things, kept him busy with long strategy sessions and weapons drills until Jake was ready to drop. It helped distract Jake; he was exhausted every night when he came back to the room he and Hawkins shared courtesy to their current hero status. He'd check on Hawkins, relay whatever news he'd picked up during the day, then fall into bed and be out like a light. On the plus side, it meant Jake didn't drive Hawkins nuts with his jitters and strained smiles. It didn't do anything to slow his nightmares though and Hawkins spent hours watching Jake sleep, jerk awake, sleep, and jerk awake again. It wore on them both.

They hadn't touched sexually since the first time, hadn't had the opportunity what with the war against New Bern and then Jake had been grieving for his father and Maggie, and... they just hadn't. Nothing but an occasional brush against each other, a few touches that lingered slightly too long, and they'd done that before they'd had sex. It might've been easier had they kept up the physical intimacy. Maybe then Hawkins would've had the courage to simply climb into Jake's bed and see whether skin to skin contact couldn't calm him down some. As it was, all he did was watch and grit his teeth and push his own body that much harder the next day.

Until finally, five weeks after they'd touched down in San Antonio with the nuke, two weeks after the formal declaration of war, Hawkins could walk out of the hospital and into the officers' mess where Jake was discussing the logistics of partisan involvement with a group of high-ranking and very interested Texans.

Jake's eyes lit up when he saw Hawkins, who smirked and held up two packed backpacks. For the first time since Hawkins had been shot, Jake grinned widely.

They were on the way back to Jericho within the hour.

* * *

Traveling through land that was in the throes of a civil war and littered with fallout zones turned out to be an interesting experience. They made it into Oklahoma before they had to leave the car Chavez had procured for them. Since neither of them had any intention of hoofing it all the way back, they walked north until they came across one of the many small farming communities around Guymon, where Jake started looking around for other means of transportation.

"Horses," Hawkins muttered, more resigned than disgusted. "What else?" He stared glumly at the beasts milling around in their dusty paddock, knowing he'd be sore for days until he got used to being in the saddle again. That's what you got when you partnered with someone who'd grown up on a ranch.

"Horses," Jake confirmed, much too cheerful for someone who'd spent most of the day evading enemy patrols. "Let me talk, okay?" he added, hefting his pack.

"Why?" Hawkins asked, falling in step beside him. "I'm good at negotiating." They'd taken what they could carry from the car, including the smaller engine parts, a canister of gas, and a bottle of Four Roses whiskey Chavez had given him because Chavez, the bastard, knew exactly that Hawkins didn't _like_ Four Roses. Chavez was a good guy, but he needed to work on his sense of humor. Still, Hawkins figured the gas and the whiskey alone should buy them whatever horses they wanted.

"My turf," Jake reminded him. "Also, we're not buying two horses. We're buying a horse and a burro."

Hawkins stopped, not liking the idea at all. "Wait a minute. What d'you want with a fucking donkey?"

Which was when Jake got that look on his face again, the one he got when he was about to pull a fast one on somebody. In this case, the farmer... or so Hawkins hoped. "It's just an expression. Something my grandfather used to say." Jake started walking towards the ranch again, slowly. After a second, Hawkins followed. "Almost every place that sells horses has a burro," Jake explained with a gesture towards the bored looking horses on the other side of the fence. "Could be a horse with a bad history, or maybe it's plain mean. Doesn't make it bad horseflesh, just a bitch to handle. That's what we're looking for, because a burro usually sells cheap and that way we can keep the whiskey to trade for provisions later."

"Uh huh," Hawkins grunted. He gave Jake a narrow-eyed stare. "And who's going to ride that burro?"

Jake grinned. "I am."

"Uh huh," Hawkins said again, because sometimes, there simply were no words for how badly he wanted to smack some sense into that shaggy head. "You do realize there's no hospital between here and Jericho and no way to medevac you if that _burro_ kicks you in the head, right?"

Jake, of course, just kept grinning. "Trust me. I'm good with burros. It'll be fine."

"It better be," Hawkins told him amiably. "'cause I'll shoot you myself if you break your neck."

"Uh huh," Jake said, unperturbed.

And then he went and bought a nice, normal horse for Hawkins and a crazy bay gelding for himself that bucked him off twice before they'd so much as left the property. The fucking psycho horse sold for the piston rings they'd taken from the car. Hawkins' sedate pinto cost them the canister of gas _and_ they had to hand over the spark plug and the crankshaft for the tack. It was highway robbery, but it didn't faze Jake.

Nothing fazed Jake. Jake was going home.

* * *

They nearly died in a river. They nearly died in a landslide. They got shot at by soldiers and Ravenwood mercenaries and paranoid hicks. The burro bit Jake _and_ Hawkins. It also proved to be a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out fruit trees. Jake did stupid, suicidal shit and Hawkins yelled at him for it and then slammed him up against a tree and fucked him raw. Then Hawkins didn't listen to Jake and almost stepped into a bear trap and Jake returned the favor. That pretty much broke the spell; all that hunger for human touch came to the fore and wiped out the line between friendship and sexual desire that had slowed them down before. The lack of distractions beyond basic survival did the rest.

They stopped separating their blankets and started trading lazy handjobs and messy blowjobs before they went to sleep curled around each other. They fucked in the mornings, slow and intense, until the sour scent of Jake's night terrors turned into the musky, heated smell of arousal. Jake would have minor freak outs two out of five times at first, flashing back to New Bern, to Constantino and Mike, and the furious helplessness of forced surrender. Hawkins coaxed him out of it every time, making a mental note of the specific triggers and talking them through with Jake later, when they lay waiting for sleep to come.

They ended up talking a lot in the dark. Easier to say the things that needed to be said, the things they wanted to say, when they couldn't see and had to read each other's body language instead of facial expressions. It was intimate; more so at times than the sex – and that was plenty intimate. It was the time for caresses and languid kisses, for exploring with gentle hands and curious mouths. At night, Jake let down his guard, let Hawkins _in_, allowed himself be held and petted without bristling or shying away. Hawkins learned to like nights a lot.

Planning and discussing tactics was for the daylight hours, as was speculating about what might await them in Jericho. Swapping war stories was for dusk, when they made camp; snatches of general information and classified memories alike. Hawkins admitted he had indeed worn an earring for a while when he'd infiltrated the terrorist cell, because it wasn't something people expected government agents to do. Jake revealed, somewhat sheepishly, that the "Numquam Retro" tattoo on his forearm was the result of a night out with a group of Austrian Special Forces soldiers. He'd woken up with a hangover and the tattoo, though at least he hadn't been the only one. Most of it was little shit. Stupid shit. But it was shit that nobody else knew about them. Nobody who counted.

* * *

The first time Jake kissed Hawkins just because he felt like it was when they encountered the first road sign that listed Jericho.

The first time they realized they had no idea which shirt was whose anymore was when they stopped to do laundry once they'd crossed into territory so familiar even Hawkins recognized the shape of the hills. He'd never thought he'd come to call a cow town in Kansas his home.

The first time Hawkins patted the burro approvingly was when the burro kicked a Ravenwood enforcer in the face ten miles out from Tacoma Bridge. Incidentally, that was also when he first realized the burro reminded him of Jake. A lot.

They rode into Jericho openly, ready to take on Major Beck or whoever had come to replace him, because they'd been through too much to come slinking back like thieves in the night. They needn't have worried. By the time they reined in their mounts in front of the city hall, Jake and Hawkins were flanked by Jake's Jericho Rangers... who apparently had assimilated Major Beck's men while Jake had been gone. The flag flying proudly in the wind wasn't that of the Allied States of America, but the Gadsden flag with its coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background and the warning "Don't Tread on Me" written in stark black letters beneath.

"Huh," Jake said, looking at the flag while his burro snorted and pranced under him, clearly itching to kick somebody. "I think that used to be my dad's."

It would be. "Does this look like the start of a revolution to you?" Hawkins asked rhetorically, glancing at the proud, grinning faces surrounding them and well aware of the expectant silence.

Jake made a show out of studying the fire-blackened ruin of the former J&amp;R headquarters on the town square. "Yep," he decided after a moment. "Hell of a start, too."

Hawkins nodded to himself. "Think they could use a couple of extra men?"

After all, it was easy to start something. Time to see if they could go the distance.

 

**Post Script:   
Don't Tread On Me**

 

> _"I believe this government is corrupt at its core, its actions are criminal, and I no longer recognize their right to lead."_
> 
> Major Edward Beck,   
> Jericho, Kansas, March 2008

 

"On March 25, 2008," the teacher said, leaning against her desk in front of the most current map of Northern America, "Robert Hawkins and Jake Green left Jericho to retrieve the last remaining bomb from Day Zero from the belly of the beast in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Jake Green started this journey after more than a week of captivity and torture, dehydrated and sleep-deprived, three ribs cracked. He did it because Robert Hawkins asked him to.

"During their recapturing of the device, Hawkins himself was shot and severely wounded, but despite their injuries, they succeeded in taking back the bomb and making it all the way across town to the Texan embassy." Her lips twitched into a smile. "Crashed right through the gate, or so I heard.

"Ambassador Sam Travis granted Hawkins and Green political asylum and had the two of them smuggled out of the embassy within the hour. Jake Green then flew a plane out of Cheyenne to San Antonio, Texas. He stayed on course even when two ASA F-15s were about to shoot him out of the sky. If not for Texas Air National Guard Colonels Hannibal Thompson and Brad Byrd, it would all have ended a few miles north of the Texas border."

She looked out into her classroom. It wasn't full by any means – only ten pupils were clustered around her desk, listening and, in one case, taking notes. It was more kids than the year before. Education still wasn't a priority with many people, but things were settling down and the desire to learn and grow beyond basic survival is a fundamental part of being human. They'd come. Slowly, one by one, but they'd come. Ten students didn't seem much, but – as her own teacher had told her a long time before in a near-empty little classroom in the heart of Kansas – it was a start.

"The bomb was the evidence the Republic of Texas needed to refuse an alliance with the Jennings &amp; Rall puppet government in Cheyenne and throw its weight behind the reformed United States government in Columbus, Ohio. In the end, this was what tipped the scales in favor of the Free Democrats.

"During the Second Civil War, Robert Hawkins and Jake Green became two of the most well-known leaders of the Midwestern resistance against the J&amp;R regime. It started with the Jericho Rangers and grew into an army of citizen soldiers called the Kansas Rattlers. They took back their land from the Allied States troops town by town with the help of Edward Beck, a renegade ASA major. There were five Jericho-based core cells, headed by Jake's friends and confidantes: his brother Eric, Stanley Richmond, Emily Sullivan, as well as Bill Kohler and Jimmy Taylor, two former Jericho deputies."

She remembered them all, some better than others. Eric Green had taken over as Jericho's mayor after the war. She'd seen him walk into Bailey's the last time she'd been there, his heavy limp more pronounced than ever, but his eyes still lighting up when he spied his wife behind the bar. Stanley was a dim memory at best, the blurry image of a blond, blue-eyed Kansas farm boy with a brilliant smile and lingering sadness in his gaze, attached at the hip to his sharp-tongued big city wife, Mimi. She'd witnessed Mimi blast a poor unsuspecting government official once, so she remembered her better than Stanley; she knew the two had been total opposites, but so much in love with each other their differences had merely added some spice to their relationship.

She'd never forget Emily. All those years, and she still wanted to _be_ like Emily. Pretty as a princess and tough as old shoe leather, the kind of woman who could march right into war then come back and try to teach children not to fuck up the world any more when it was their turn to run it.

Bill Kohler... he'd been a good friend of Jimmy's, a sly-faced, hotheaded man who didn't seem to have any family of his own but was fiercely protective of the one he'd made in Jericho. He had stepped right between Jimmy and a bullet, and died with a smile on his lips. Jimmy was the one she remembered best. He'd been a good friend, still was. A gentle man of simple needs, so much smarter than he looked, so much braver. And though she'd been there when he'd walked across a Kansas battlefield at Jake's side, dirty and covered in blood, rifle in his hand, somehow, when she thought about him, she always saw him in his old police uniform, smiling good-naturedly.

"Remember their names," she told the children, because this was important. Few people knew now what these men and women had really been like. How beautiful and flawed each in their own right, so ready to laugh and love and fight for what they believed in, never giving up. "It might've ended with the Siege of Carson City, but it started with a few people in Jericho, Kansas."

One of the kids, a tall, gangly boy by the name of Jasper, gave her a skeptical look. "My dad says, if those two fags hadn't played hero, the war wouldn't've happened at all, an' my uncle Toby would still be alive."

She should've been used to it, but hearing those two men who meant so much to her described as "fags" still got her back up. She gritted her teeth, but chose not to rise to that rather personal bait and focus on the rest of the comment. "We'll never know what could've been or might've been," she said, a sliver of irritation sliding into her tone despite her best intentions. "That's why it's called _history_. It's over and done with, something we can learn from so with a bit of luck, we won't repeat our mistakes."

Fat chance, but hope springs eternal.

"For what it's worth," she added, "I believe this war would've happened anyway. Because the states rallied under the Columbus government wouldn't have given in without a fight. Because what J&amp;R did was one of the biggest, most heinous crimes in the history of mankind, and sooner or later, people would've recognized their regime for what it was. So yes, I'm convinced a civil war was unavoidable. I want to believe J&amp;R would've lost either way, but no matter what, there would've been a much higher price to pay. Without Robert Hawkins and Jake Green, the Allied States would've had time to dig in and they would've had Texas with them.

"Those two men had to make a decision in those bloody, confused days before the war. They knew what they were starting. There'll always be people who blame them for what came after. But I, for one, am convinced it was the right thing to do."

There'd come a time, she knew, when all that remained were the names written down in history books and a few photos that did neither of them justice... like the one in her wallet, two days old, that showed Jake and her father sitting on the hood of Jake's car. Jake was grinning at the camera, slanted eyes warm with contentment, hair a mess and a hickey peeking out from beneath the collar of his hoodie. Her father's crow's-feet were crinkled with laughter and he was smiling openly, one knee pressed firmly against Jake's. They both looked worn around the edges, hardened by years of fighting, but the fire was still there. They were still going strong.

Still out there, living their own history.

 

**The End**


End file.
